The Color Tour, Minimalists and Missed Opportunities

The director of our senior hall listens to her members. Last year I made a comment that I wish the center would offer a shorter color tour than the annual one that takes twelve hours. My dog’s kidneys are good for seven hours but I’d have to put him in a kennel to go on the longer trips and I’ve missed seeing the colors on country roads. This year she offered a half day trip and it sold out five times, meaning she was able to set up four additional days to take people up north for lunch, tree peeping and stops at an Amish bakery and a cheese factory. To my surprise, while on the bus she acknowledged the shorter color tours was my idea and I got a round of applause. I wish we could bottle up her expertise at running a senior hall and distribute it across the country. Her guiding principle is that we older people are no different than younger people; we enjoy life learning experiences and don’t want a center than only offers aging related stuff, bingo and trips to casinos.

The color tour took us around the summertime stamping grounds of my best friend growing up. They’ve got a growing Amish community going in the area now but back in our teens they could have been there and we wouldn’t have noticed. The summer I stayed at my friend’s cottage we were so boy crazy we only noticed guys in cars and bathing suits. I loved how all the Amish kids waved at our bus and how they were working out in the fields with bare feet and straw hats as if the temperature wasn’t in the 60s. I loved seeing the old fashioned corn stalks that reminded me of an old master’s painting I can’t name the moment. Seeing the horse drawn buggies go up and down the roads had the same effect on me as my listening to my Buddhist meditation app. Maybe it was the reminder that living a simpler life is possible and it had me romanticizing about what life would be like if I’d let go of my attachments to worldly goods and more importantly, if I let go of wanting something so vague I can’t even name it. But the truth is, being a minimalist seems like the scariest thing in the world and going off in that direction before I’ve put a label on the vague wanting inside me seems foolish. 

From time to time I'm drawn to reading about minimalists like a gawker who can't look away as a man strips naked in the street. On a minimalist website it says, “The entire minimalist lifestyle promotes individuality and self-reliance. This will make you more confident in your pursuit of happiness.” I get the self-reliant part but how does it promote individually when you live in a sterile environment void of anything that sets you apart from other minimalists? Lifehack.org also says, “When we cling onto material possessions we create stress because we are always afraid of losing these things.” Well duh! That one-size-fits-all bit of rah-rah-you-can-do-this logic might work for younger people who are still in the workforce and can afford to buy stuff back if they regret their minimalist choices, but it doesn't work for this child of depression era parents. Younger people also don’t have to shake the feeling that downsizing is preparation for the end of your life. I’m still here! I still love my art and antiques and having a forty year old Faberware indoor grill in the cupboard that I only use once a month. It can’t be replaced. I’ve tried and the George Foreman and Cuisinart grills both ended up at Goodwill.

Back to my leaf peeping color tour: The landscape color palette was spectacular with its scarlet, merlot and cadmium reds; flaxen, banana and ochre yellows; tawny, tortilla and burnt sienna browns; juniper and pine greens; and fire and ginger oranges. The sky bounced between coin and cloud gray as the sun tried its best to shine and its failure to do so took the frosting off the vista views but it did not spoil the cake. God, I must be hungry with all the food and drink colors that came to mind here. Which is a good lead in to the Amish bakery that ran out of black walnut bread by the time I got to the front of the line but I scored a pumpkin roll and resisted the best looking caramel and nuts rolls I’ve ever seen. 

We had lunch in a resort/lake community and I was bookended by two ladies who always order gluten free. I’m glad I don’t have to do that. The year I had to avoid yellow dye #5 in food in an effort to figure out if it was giving me hives made me appreciate how hard it is to label-read everything that goes in your mouth, not to mention the fact that gluten laden foods are simply the best in my book of forbidden pleasures. One of the gluten free ladies was my seatmate on the bus. She was raised in Kentucky and she is always a pleasure to be round because our sense of humors match. She asked me to co-chair a luncheon with her at the senior hall, but I turned her down. Ya, I know, not a smart move for a person claiming to be looking for friends. I miss enough opportunities for bonding deeper that I wonder sometimes if what I say I want is remotely near what is written on my heart. ©

Architecture, Material Girls and the Travel Club

My Travel Club, this week, sponsored a lecture about World Architecture. It was fascinating and made me wish I was young again and that the world was still safe to roam around to see the wonders of the world. The slide show started off with the pyramids and ancients castles and worked its way through the great churches, cathedrals and other religious buildings up to modern day concoctions that you’d be hard pressed to decide if you were seeing a building or a giant pile of salvage metal discarded alongside a highway. The cutie pie who did the lecture was probably in his late thirties and he worked for a company that designs public buildings all over the world, including a hospital in Egypt. Interesting side note: One wall in each patient room had to have an angled wall that pointed toward Mecca so they’d always know which way to face during prayers.

I was smitten with the lecturer’s confidence, his world-traveler experiences and his knowledge-base of a field of study I have taken a deep interest in since before my teens. Computers and 3-D printers have taken over many aspects of the field, giving rise to new ways of working. In the past, architects always worked from the inside out. Now, they can draw weird or wonderfully shaped buildings and design from the outside in. He also gave an example of how computers have expanded design options: a mall walkway roof made entirely out of glass---millions of pieces, no two alike, and a computer figured out all the shapes and sizes then cut them and barcoded each one as they were automatically produced so a human could install them in the right order. New materials and technology have always pushed architects to explore their possibilities.

The lecture bought two other interesting things into my day. 1) I got there ten minutes early and had a great conversation with another widow, nine years out. She’s in my new book club and it was the first time she’d been to my travel club. That’s been happening a lot lately---I’ll see someone in several places that I’m just getting to know. And 2) After having a small etching plate print haunt me for nearly 50 years, I finally found out what it was. One of the slides the architect showed was of the same structure and it turned out to be the “Arche De Triumphal” also called a victory arch---this one in Paris. They were first built by the Ancient Romans to commemorate someone conquering something and the tradition continued to where they’re all over Europe. I sold my print last summer and regretted it almost immediately. 

Yes, I am a Material Girl and I struggle with changing that aspect of my personality, not really sure I want to do it because I’m not dead yet and I still enjoy my stuff. If you remember Ms. Poetry from another blog entry (A Walk in the Woods) each morning on her Facebook page she has something from a site called ‘Becoming a Minimalist.’ We lived near a minimalist once; he borrowed everything from his neighbors so he and his wife didn’t have to buy or keep the tools it takes to maintain a house yet they bragged about how they’d simplified their lives. Great, learn to rent a floor scrubber or wet/dry shop vac instead of putting extra wear on your neighbor’s. 

Today’s message from The Minimalist site was: “Your life is too valuable to waste it chasing possessions.” How is it a waste if you enjoy the chase? Half my husband’s life was based on hunting old and obsolete things. Someone has to chase things like every Thomas Edison or Roy Rogers thingamabob ever invented otherwise they’d never end up in museums a 100 years later. I’ve already done two major downsizings in my recent history, and half my current frustrations come from feeling guilty for not doing more downsizing so my family doesn’t have to do it when I die. The other half of my frustrations come from being resentful that one day I might have to live in a couple of sterile rooms with no character or conversation pieces. I am fascinated by people who want to join the ‘tiny living’ movement but please don’t tell me I’ve wasted my life because I don’t want to live in 200 square feet with just two coffee cups and an iPad.

The day after the lecture I might as well have been a mushroom growing in a dark cave. My job list required dry weather and it rained and I didn’t have enough common sense to write a new one. I didn’t accomplish anything except writing a check for my snow removal service for this coming winter and taking a call about my upcoming bone infusion. Maybe I was just resting up for next twenty-five days when I have nineteen appointments/events on my day planner. I enjoy fall, long job lists always come with the season. ©

NOTE: The photo at the top of is Park Guell, a public park in Barcelona designed by Antonio Gaudi, a famous architect known for his colorful and playful designs, circa 1900. I could not live with that much color in my life but it would be fun to visit.

The Closet Purging Project

before photos of my overstuffed, L-shaped closet

crazy about my Crocs

I think I’ve gone over the edge. Yesterday I was reading Bella Rum’s blog about longing to update her wardrobe and since I have lusted after the same goal since leaving my caregiver years behind, I decided to research the topic. (I’ve been such failure in this department and at purging my closet.) I truly do want to do the purge and update, but I have too many stops and starts with no finish line in sight. So for additional inspiration I found some dollar books at Amazon, downloaded them to my Kindle and began reading. I started with a book titled, Ten Steps to Declutter Your Closet. Short and sweet. Twenty-five pages of standard stuff: haul everything out of the closet, try on everything and purge the stuff that doesn’t fit, is stained or needs repairs or that you haven’t worn in the last year. One Year! I’ve got  nearly three feet worth of closet rod taken up with vintage clothing from as far back to the Kennedy administration. Clearly, I need an intervention or I’m going to have to sit down and watch a marathon of the TV show Hoarders before I can take those vintage ‘memory clothes’ to a consignment shop and be a successful purger with the rest. When I watch a Hoarders episode on Monday you can usually find me cleaning on Tuesday.

After purging the author says I need color coded hangers. All the problems in the world of fashion and closet organization can be solved with color coding. Wow, you learn something new every day. (I need an eyes-rolling icon here to go along with that statement.) What is color coded hangers going to do about my waste-not hang-ups, those habits ingrained in me from early childhood? Back then it was my job to remove zippers and buttons off from worn-out clothing to save for sewing projects and to cut the serviceable parts of a garment away from the worn-out parts to use to make doll clothes, rags or quilts? Can you believe it, I still have a doll dressed in clothe made from my mother’s wedding suit? And do I dare to admit that she kept a pair of silk and lace panties from her honeymoon in 1937 and I have them tucked away in a box of vintage linen? How bizarre is that? Oh, but are they cute! ---the palest pink handmade panties you ever saw, boy-cut style with five tiny buttons on each sides. Can you image unbuttoning those panties if you were in a hurry to pee?

Mom was a product of hard times and never wasted a thing when it came to clothing. But I didn’t grow up dirt poor without a mother and with an unstable father, like she did. I didn’t have to quit school and get farmed out to work at age nine-ten so my father could have drinking money. And I didn’t have to watch as my younger siblings were sent off to be adopted by other families the way Mom did. I know I’m not my mother but her voice rings in my head when I look at my overstuffed closet. Okay, crack out the psych books and help me figure how color coded hangers is going to erase a lifetime of feeling guilty for wasting money on clothing I don’t need, like and/or wear anymore? If I hold on to stuff in the closet, pretending one day I’ll wear it again, it’s easier in my twisted sense of logic not to feel the guilt.

The second book I bought to inspire my closet purging project I’m half way through reading. It was written by woman you might have run across on the internet. She writes a blog called the Minimalist: Living a Beautiful Life with Less Stuff. I’m actually enjoying her views on purging and organizing closets and other parts of the house. I could never live like she does with only four tumblers in the house to drink from or with the concept of only having one Buddha bowl per household member to eat all their meals from---she got rid of all her glassware and china. However, the concept of less is more is appealing and I admire her dedication to saving the planet but I would hate being her neighbor! If they do household repair projects or throw a party they borrow everything. Ya, sure you can borrow my floor scrubber. Again. So it wears out twice as fast.

In the closet Ms. Minimalist says you need to pick a base color like black, navy or brown for all your pants, skirts, jackets, purse and shoes and purge everything else. Then she goes on to talk about limiting shirts, blouses and sweaters to three color that blend together, then having an array of colorful accessories. Her color palette and mine aren't far apart but Ohmygod, she pared down her closet items to less than two dozen garments, where I have---drum roll please---210 things hanging in my closet plus thirteen pairs of shoes. The folded clothes in my closet include: ten pairs of jeans, eight nightgowns and twelve sweatshirts plus container boxes for bras, slips, underpants and Red Hat society stuff. Did I mention the boxes of clothing that doesn't fit? Where did I find room for all of Don’s clothes that got purged shortly after he died? I know, some of my 210 things were stored in boxes before his passing. I couldn’t stand looking at the empty space where his things once hung.

The third book I bought for inspiration was on how to dress for your body shape. If and when---no, WHEN I get my closet purged I will read that book before buying more things---I really do want an updated wardrobe! In the meantime I have set Valentine’s Day as the goal for completing the closet purging.

The minimalist had a great tip that I started doing yesterday and I think it will be easy to maintain. She calls it the One-a-Day Declutter. You commit to getting rid of one thing a day be it a worn out bra, a mismatched sock or whatever---even a piece of paper counts---and by the end of the year your space is 365 items lighter. I’m planning to document my One-a-Day Declutter items on my day planner because, well, I’m just a list kind of person. Yesterday I threw out an old pair of Crocs that I still wore every day even though they are so worn out they weren’t comfortable anymore. But I have a confession to make. Before throwing out my Crocs I cut off the button that holds the strap so I can repair another pair of Crocs that has a broken button. Mom would be proud. ©

Just to prove I don’t hoard in the rest of the house, here are pictures of my dining area with Levi watching the action at the bird feed and a photo of one of my two desks…the clean and orderly one where I park my lap top when not in use. If anyone who has been to my house is reading this, stop laughing because you know my library and garage are more cluttered than the parts of the house I’m sharing here.