Are books disposable? It all depends on the book - I quite happily take books to Oxfam when I've read them. Not sure what the authors would feel about this one...
I also had a light-bulb moment when I realised I could write in cookery books, and tear apart camping site guides.
In school they encouraged us to make pencil notes on texts we studied. I suppose regarding the book as disposable is not such a big step.
Some of mine should definitely be disposed of.
As for clutter - I wouldn't try to list it, but know the feeling of being unable to discard.
I read somewhere there are three questions to ask.
1. Is it beautiful?
2. Is it useful?
3. Do I love it?
Hmm. That takes care of most stuff then.
I could add a question.
4. Does it make me feel guilty?
Answer yes, and then what - throw it away and feel its presence in your head? Keep it and hide it? Write about it, then throw it away?
Another poem - from July 2006. Luckily for me, my sister took the tea-set. I wrote the poem in her house. My thoughts, not hers.
The weight of old china
Once upon a time
great-great-aunt Jane
bought a "half tea-set",
fluted cups, sugar bowl,
proud with painted peacocks .
It sat for years,
grew old and heavy.
Ah, yes, this belonged to Aunt Jane.
The things it must have seen,
the years
the tears.
She left it to my mother,
who left it to me.
I can't give it away
or sell on eBay
so it squats behind glass,
unwashed and unwished,
on a shelf
on the edge of my life.
Just because it's old
doesn't make it mean a thing
-
cuckoo
sucking food
eating space.
No use,
no beauty,
no sense but duty
to dead hands.
I want to be free
to be clear to be me
to know my history
not carry artefacts
like sacks of coal
heave-heavy.
No reason to hoard
crocks in a cupboard
out of sight,
out of mind.
Did she think she was refined
a century ago?
Was it just for show?
Did it sit on a shelf
peacock-proud of itself?
Used or abused
in life's rough and tumble?
I don't want it
you can have it.
Take it away
snapshot it
file it
smash it
trash it.
It's nothing to me.
An update September 2011 - the teaset was sold, a year or so ago, in a charity shop for £12. Much better for it than sitting on the shelf. And now it's lost the emotional baggage, methinks, set free to sink or swim in this wide world.
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