Hoarding is about more than clothes
This week, to borrow a phrase from an Eminem song, I’ve been clearing out my closet, though rather more literally than the metaphorical outpouring of childhood angst he rapped about. At least that was the idea, but what began as a practical exercise to thin out the ridiculous herd of clothing, which had grown to such an extent that I couldn’t really get in the cupboard to find anything and so in practice tend to wear the same half-dozen outfits kept nearest the door, ended up becoming more of an emotional journey than planned.
Let me explain. I come from a family of hoarders. My granny, mum, uncle and auntie were all congenitally unable to throw things out; about the most they could ever manage was to pass them on, hence my homes have always been an undesigned mishmash of things inherited rather than necessarily chosen (incidentally this is a good way to judge sloppy set design on historical dramas. Unless it’s a particular quirk of a wealthy character, few houses in the past should be entirely furnished in the style of their period: Victorian houses would be cluttered with Georgian leftovers, 1920s homes would have had old antimacassars mixed in with the Art Deco).
Doubtless this trait originally came from poverty: the family came from the Calton in Glasgow and, according to an old document traced a few years ago, a 19th-century inspector once found that their only furniture was a tick mattress on the floor ‘on which all huddled together’. You can see how, as the centuries progressed, that passed-on memory would have made people cling on to anything they acquired, even once it was not entirely needed.
And I can’t deny that the Mullaney hoarding gene lives within me too, as much as I try to resist it – and I do, with regular bursts of clearing-out which never go quite far enough. So, without being at all interested in shopping or fashion – in fact, being so resistant to the latter that daft chick flick ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ seemed to me like a tragic tale of a woman who actually loses her soul – I still somehow acquired a massive wardrobe, simply by dint of not getting rid of any clothes at all unless they were literally in rags. And with modern fabrics and a habit of darning, that hardly ever happens, believe me.
Thus, when I moved home a couple of years ago, the only cupboard in the house (it’s a strange house) – one of those walk-in, under-the-stairs places – had to be pressed into service to store my ridiculous collection of clothes (my partner, who could probably happily live with a mere suitcase of possessions, got the wee narrow wardrobe). Which seemed like a good idea, until that closet became a messy disaster.
This latest attempt at imposing order was inspired by reading – or, to be honest, reading about – a book called ‘The Life Changing Magic Of Tidying Up’, by Marie Kondo, a bestseller based on ‘the Japanese art of decluttering’. Like all self-help books, it promises transformation; like most, you can probably get the gist by reading a decent article about it, without having to wade through the whole thing. This one has inspired quite a cult online: there are endless YouTube videos of people – okay, women, mostly American women, and there’s a thesis there in why self-improvement through order in the home might particularly appeal to women – showing off their wardrobes and drawers, before and after. Kondo advocates a particular way of folding clothes and the demonstration videos are strangely hypnotic. I watched them on a loop for days.
The basic idea of her system is that you get out everything you own, put it on the floor and then examine each item, one by one. It is a marvellous way of wasting time. With each thing – say, each T-shirt – you ask yourself, ‘does this spark joy?’ If the answer is yes, you keep it, carefully folded so that it stands up on its own slotted upright (rather than in piles) into a drawer or shelf, so that you can see all of them at once. If not, then with a slight tinge of animism, Kondo suggests that you thank the T-shirt for its service and pass it on elsewhere, like a charity shop.
I will leave you to imagine how far I took her advice. It is difficult to thank a manky old vest or a bobbly jumper for its service with a straight face. It is also difficult to decide whether plain thick black tights spark any joy, though having cold legs in a Glasgow gale would certainly spark the opposite.
But there was something in it, despite the psychobabble phrasing. Remarkably often, it made it easier to decide whether to keep or chuck something that could be worn, that was perfectly all right, that would do a turn or there was nothing up with it – but which actually induced a feeling of utter boredom or depression. Whereas things which had been worn a hundred times or darned to within an inch of their lives, which haven’t been in style at any point let alone this century, but which make me smile to see them: yes, easy choice! The floaty dress I wore the first time I went to the Glastonbury Festival, a billion years ago before it was a slick BBC-hyped mega-event? Still makes me feel like summer. The cloche hat which I wanted to make me look like Dorothy Parker going to a literary soiree, but which is actually too small for my head and so perches sadly on top more like Stan Laurel’s? Never going to be what I want it to be.
For so many of our clothes – or other possessions – are about hopes rather than reality. Wanting to be the kind of person who can wear this, or who looks like that, or who fits this, rather than who we actually are. Women, for obvious historical and sociological reasons (rather than, I maintain, anything innate) are particularly prone to it. Young people too, still figuring out who they are (it took me years to realise that no matter how many smart suits I bought, I was never going to want to wear them, because I’m just not a suit person). But it can also apply to certain cars, to those weights you never lift, to that book you have on the shelf that you want to have read but don’t actually want to read. I admire those, of any gender or age, who can resist the lure of the material possession which is going to transform you. Or, indeed, of the self-help regime which is going to change your life.
In the end I cleared out five full binbags of clothes to go to Oxfam; thanks to their ‘tag your bag’ scheme for reclaiming tax, in six months I should receive an email telling me how much they sold them for. To be frank, I’ll be amazed if they raise 15 quid, but fingers crossed. For someone idly searching through the charity shop rails, these clothes will be fresh, if not of mothballs, but of associations. They won’t know that this is the top that always sat wrong around the neck, or the skirt that was always too tight, or the black jacket I never wore simply because I had two very similar others I liked more. They won’t realise that I bought that weird purple velvet dress on a Friday lunchtime years ago to cheer myself up about being in a job that I hated, only to realise that I’d more or less spent everything on it, after bills, that I’d just earned that week. Maybe that dress will spark joy in them.
Faintly American in its ‘right to the pursuit of happiness’ quality, it’s not a bad question to ask of life in general. A lot of what we do is just habit or hoarding, not necessity: does spending an hour on Twitter really bring you joy? What about those regular lunches with that person you’ve known for years, but who spends the whole time moaning about some boring trivia – is that just a hoarded friendship, a faded outfit which no longer really fits?
Then again, you can be too ruthless. Maybe in a few months’ time, I’ll suddenly be seized with an urge for those things I’ve cleared out. Maybe I’ll have a pressing need for that particular bobbly jumper, despite still having a dozen others. And most likely those precision-folded piles of T-shirts will have descended into crumpled heaps. But till then, I have hope: I’m not a hoarder, I’m the kind of person with a beautifully organised, rational closet which sparks joy. Honest.
By Andrea Mullaney | July 2015