I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Thursday Thinker, I share a smart idea or theory.
In Confronting the Material Convoy in Later Life (2012), Gabriella V Smith and David J Ekerdt write of the stuff that accompanies us on our life courses, terming it the material convoy:
A regard for the “lives” of things is well established in consumption studies (Appadurai, 1986). As they reside with their acquirers, single items could be described, in the language of life course studies (Elder, Johnson and Crosnoe, 2004), as having careers, trajectories, durations, transitions, entries, exits. This implies that the collection, as a whole, will have a dynamic composition over time. To enunciate this idea, we adapt a metaphor from life course studies to designate the body of one’s possessions, at any one time and as borne through time, as a convoy of material support. Kahn and Antonucci (1980) originally applied the convoy metaphor to describe a structure of social support, a dynamic personal network of family and acquaintances within which support is given and received. Analogous to these authors’ notion of a social convoy, the material convoy of possessions has members of more and less importance, a composition at once stable and changeable, convoy constituents that also populate the convoys of others, and predictable age-linked changes (e.g., expansion in early adulthood). The individual literally bears a material convoy from cradle to grave and from place to place. And, like Kahn and Antonucci’s social convoy, people also have affective and affirmative transactions with their things, if only imaginatively.
Quoted in Let It Go: Downsizing Your Way to a Richer, Happier Life by Peter Walsh, Ekerdt says:
Our possessions are extensions of ourselves. All of these things in the convoy are part of our past selves, but they’re also part of our possible selves. They’re selves I could become, so I hang on to the object that accomplish that. All these cookbooks I have, I’m going to cook all those foods in there! I’m going to use those tools in the basement! Or the bicycle!
my material convoy has begun to feel oppressive
I’ve been feeling oppressed by the size and composition of my material convoy lately: too much stuff, especially too many things representing past versions of me that I’m not ready to get rid of yet: my guitar and guitar music from when I took a course of group lessons at Swallow Hill; my mirrorless camera, fancy strip lights, and camera tripod for photographing paintings and maybe even creating a business photographing other people’s art; my electronic keyboard and all the classical piano music from my youth that I might play on it someday. And yes, a bunch of cookbooks from when I used to cook, for my family, or for friends when I entertained.
Of course there is as well the stream of painted canvases emerging from my painting practice. Yesterday I decided to tackle decluttering my painting studio, which is in the upstairs loft. In the process, I threw away ten paintings. I don’t want to end up like my ex-boyfriend’s mother — her basement filled with her hundreds of paintings that her sons have no idea what to do with.
Then I moved five boxes of photos that were in the closet in the loft to the basement storage room, trying not to look at any, lest I feel grief and sadness for times past, and for mistakes made. I transported my wedding album downstairs without opening it.
I feel lighter today.
Can decluttering improve your mindset?
Walsh writes of his decluttering method:
One goal of the Let It Go way of downsizing is for you to surround yourself with only a manageable number of possessions that you cherish and treasure, which trigger good emotional responses, like joy, relaxation, focus, and motivation.
At the same time you’ll discard items that fuel… negative emotions that can carve a rut that keeps you from your best life.
He suggests that eliminating things you don’t want or need can bring about psychological improvement:
You can achieve a lighter, more open mindset that will help you better enjoy your new life. You’ll also be moving forward with only two kinds of items in your material convoy: treasures that trigger very specific, happy, and significant memories that you actually want to have and functional objects that will help you thrive in your new space.
Walsh is writing specifically for downsizers: people moving to a new, smaller place perhaps.
But I want to do that while living in the same place I am living in right now: my house that has room for all these possessions.
Stuff stored away in my big house
Having a large house can be a detriment, because it allows me to keep parts of the convoy that I might be better off releasing. In The Material Convoy After Age 50 Ekerdt with Lindsey A. Baker writes:
One reason for net accumulation rather than a steady state in the volume of possessions is that things get placed in “backstage” areas of the dwelling, perhaps in order to keep a tidy house, to evade the difficulty of disposal, or just because the space is available…. [What] is out of sight generally goes unscrutinized for divestment. Storing contributes to keeping.
My basement storage room is not terribly large, and it’s rapidly being filled up with stuff I can’t yet accept letting go of.
Who I really want to be
Walsh writes:
Downsizing presents a unique opportunity to pause long enough to critically examine the objects surrounding you. It’s a chance to unburden yourself—before you step into your new life—from the stuff that’s keeping you from who you really want to be.
He asks, “If you were to break up and downsize the layer of stuff that announces who you are, what would you look like underneath?”
I wonder that. Does the excess stuff I’m managing in my convoy hide who I am? Does the guitar, the electronic keyboard, the camera say something about me? To me, on first thought, they say, “this is a woman who likes to try lots of things.” But also they say, “this is a woman who doesn’t commit to things.” I suppose my wedding album says the same thing? Even though I was married for eighteen years.
But that is just one story of me. The stream of paintings issuing from my loft studio represents a multi-decade commitment to becoming an artist. The photos of my children throughout their lives, with me or with me behind the camera, suggest a mother who was always there with them, even if imperfectly so. Similarly, the photos of me with my parents, my sisters, my cousins, my aunts and uncles for holidays or other gatherings show a woman who has been supported by and supports her relatives. The dog harnesses, puffer jackets, and crates as well as the cat treats, towers, and toys say that I am a person devoted to fostering and adopting homeless pets. My extensive collection of tools and random hardware support me as a one-in-herself do-it-herselfer, one who also uses such tools and supplies to make art.
I’ve recently started a new afternoon-into-evening routine. In the afternoon, I swim or go to the gym to workout on the cardio machines. I shower at the gym, put in an hour of writing, walk the dogs, and have dinner. I wonder if I’d like to add music-making to that: guitar playing or piano? Maybe I’m not ready to give up on my music career such as it is after all.
I thought maybe where I was going with this post was a renewed vigor for decluttering and getting rid of stuff. But instead where I’ve ended up is feeling that much of my convoy at this point supports who I am, who I want to be, and who I am becoming. Maybe I don’t need to downsize in place after all.
I said to my daughter on our dog walk this morning, “maybe I should get rid of my guitar. I never play it.” She said, “why don’t you just keep it? It’s not taking up much space.” And she’s right. Maybe the only space it was taking up was my perception that it was saying, “you are a woman who doesn’t commit to things.” Instead, perhaps it can say, “you are a woman who likes to engage with many things, at different times. You might pick me up again someday.”