Cartoon by Roz Chast

It Starts Innocently Enough

“A chafing dish here, a set of coffee mugs there . . .” 

Is Your Stuff Weighing You Down?  by Anna Quindlen

I have a lot of stuff. I bet you do, too. Sofas, beds, bureaus, bookshelves. Dishes, bowls, candlesticks, serving trays. Easy chairs, folding chairs, wicker chairs. Lots and lots of chairs.

I didn’t have all this stuff when I was young and single. None of us did. It was a big deal to have blinds and coffee mugs. Many of the guys I knew didn’t; they’d tack a sheet over the bedroom window, drink from Styrofoam. My first apartment was pretty typical; I had a small uncomfortable sleeper sofa, a bentwood rocker, a coffee table that was actually a trunk—didn’t everyone in 1976?—and a set of bookshelves.

In the bedroom I had a chest of drawers and a desk that was too low for an adult, at which I would hunch over my old manual Smith Corona typewriter, my knees contorted beneath. I had swapped the twin bed of my girlhood for a double bed, which some children nowadays, raised on queen-size beds, can scarcely imagine. I was proud of that double bed. Many of my friends had futons. But then we got married and we got carafes, chafing dishes, and china. We bought matching love seats for the living room. The acquisition of stuff began.

There was a period when I believed stuff meant something. I thought that if you had matching side chairs and a sofa that harmonized and some beautiful lamps to light them, you would have a home, that elegance signaled happiness. I fooled myself into thinking that House Beautiful should be subtitled Life Wonderful. I don’t know why I thought this, since the home in which I grew up, the oldest of five, was always pretty topsy-turvy, the dining room table turned into a fort with blankets, the chunk-chunk sound of someone jumping on the bed upstairs. Statisticians say our houses are almost twice as large, on average, as they were 40 years ago, but we all understand that that doesn’t mean the people inside are any more content. Now that I’m nearing 60, I understand the truth about possessions, that they mean or prove or solve nothing. Stuff is not salvation.

My friend Susan is my role model in this regard. She and her husband and their three boys have somehow forgone crazed consumerism. They get honey from their bees, eggs from their chickens . . . Susan and her many sisters have swap meets in which they shop around among one another’s clothing. On Christmas several years ago, her youngest, Willem, was permitted, in his family’s fashion, to open one gift on Christmas eve. The next morning, when he saw his stack of presents under the tree, he said, “But I already have one.”

That’s how I feel, too. For years I acquired stuff, and after a certain point, I can’t say when, I realized I didn’t really care about most of it. If there was a fire, what would I save? We all used to say it was the photo albums, but with digital photography we all have our pictures on our computers. My cookbooks are well thumbed, but I know the best recipes by heart now, and the bad recipes I’ve either discarded or adapted.

Here’s what it comes down to, really: There is now so much stuff in my head. Memories and lessons learned have taken the place of possessions. Over the stove is the sampler I see while I’m poaching eggs or poking a fork into the pot roast: “Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance like no one’s looking.” But I suppose it could vanish, too. That’s a lesson I’ve learned by heart, over time, when I wasn’t distracted by acquisition. When I fall back into the old ways, I remember Willem saying on Christmas morning, “But I already have one.” That’s my new mantra, and it applies to almost everything. I already have one. I bet you do, too.