Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter
The Funny Thing About Death Cleaning
After reading all the reviews, I decided I had to read the latest craze in organizing books, The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, by Margareta Magnusson. Rather than morose or depressing, I found it wise, practical and unexpectedly funny. Magnusson writes with a certain dry Swedish wit combined with a devil-may-care, I’m-old-and-I-can-say-anything insouciance, and I found myself cracking up more than once.
Though I can’t deny the charm of Marie Kondo, she is kind of the extremist that I was in my twenties when I thought I knew everything and I could live on carrot sticks and art, while Magnusson is the sage, funny, old lady I aspire to be.
Magnusson’s main point, with which I concur, is, you can’t take it with you—and you don’t want to leave a mess for your heirs, so start winnowing today. Even if you are 35, it’s never too early to be aware of the fact that you aren’t going to live forever, especially when you are buying stuff.
While she touches on the environment and our consumer society, she is non-judgmental—sometimes hilariously so: “This cycle of consumption we are all part of will eventually destroy our planet—but it doesn’t have to destroy the relationship you have with whomever you leave behind.”
She is also realistic and kind about letters and photographs, which are always the hardest to part with, and she points out that going through these archives, while emotional, is a wonderful way to look back and remember your life. We all have mementos or keepsakes, but Magnusson challenges us to actually commit to spending time with those memories. Otherwise, all that saving and storing them is a waste. She suggests taking up “death cleaning” as an activity after retirement. Not only will you have a lovely, orderly home, but you will also actually embrace and enjoy the process of downsizing by sifting through your possessions and remembering their history.
Magnusson is an artist (she illustrated the book), and like many artists she has both the desire for a lovely, uncluttered home, and also the (dangerous?) ability to see beauty in everyday objects. She refers to old family letters written in ink as “small pieces of art.” One of her most practical suggestions is surprisingly Zen, and also fits perfectly with my goal to make us all more conscious consumers. She says, “It took me a while to understand this, but you can enjoy all these things without owning them. Even though this may sometimes be quite hard to do, training yourself to enjoy only looking at things, instead of buying them, is very nice and also a good practice.”
What perfect advice. I hope you are all working on honing your inventories, so that the next time you are in a store, you can just breathe, and ask yourself if you can enjoy whatever is pulling at you without possessing it.