Stuff for Stuff's Sake

The back of my car. 

My reality for many years was that I could fit everything I own in the back of my car. Well, the back and front and whatever free space my dad (a former loadmaster for the military) could find. It was first, a reality, and second, a badge of honor. I wasn’t beholden to stuff. 

Partly it was my nomadic lifestyle; I moved every two to four years (hell, that is still true as I approach 40). Partly it was a meager budget (that I have done amazing things with). And at least some part of it is that I’ve spent so much time in places with people that don’t have an abundance of material goods. It is difficult to feel justified in buying a new plate set when all of the plates are unbroken and have the added luxury of matching when people I work with cook with warped pots and cut with battered knives.

My first stint in the Bay my apartment was pretty big and replete with storage space. “Don’t worry, you’ll buy stuff to fill this space,” a friend assured me as she opened and closed empty cabinets. I didn’t have a retort because her words were like a foreign language– actually they were more foreign than any language I’d ever heard. I didn’t realize there were people in the world who thought your belongings should be greater than or equal to the space you had to house them. That wasn’t my perspective.

Seven years later and I’m not in search of “things” but my tendency toward minimalism – before the term was trending and had websites dedicated to the concept – is beginning to conflict with a desire to acquire things. All of a sudden I want new plates because the old ones are ugly and I’ve had them since college (I purchased them after much handwringing) and I want a food processor because my blender (the cause of hand-wringing a few months before) couldn’t handle my homemade veggie burger recipe.

The desire started small. I remember fretting over buying cutting boards, “I cut on plates in South Africa, I don’t really need boards,” I rationalized. Ess, in Nigeria, told me to buy a damn cutting board. And I did. But it hasn’t stopped with cutting boards…now I’m looking at tiered racks to organize my spices and a pot the same size of a pot I already have so that I can cook two different things at the same time (novel, I know). 

I haven’t purchased those things. I keep stopping myself. The more things I acquire (a carry-on suitcase to trade-off with my travel backpack when traveling for work, a throw pillow for my purely utilitarian couch, the ruffle so you can’t see under my bed) the more I feel…wasteful, extravagant? Not to mention less mobile. A food processor takes up a sizeable amount of space. 

My minimalist ways appear to be fading even as minimalism is a lifestyle choice is on the rise. I am intrigued by the varied reasons people become minimalists – the different ways it translates in the ways they live. My sister pointed out a host of reasons for the shift some people are making:

•       Spend less money 
•       Avoid consumerism
•       Take up less space
•       The environment

 I’d never really considered some of these other potential benefits. Although I know that the making (and buying) of stuff is inherently waste-filled, I never really considered how a certain type of minimalist lifestyle could combat that. Buying used items instead of new ones, buying quality items instead of cheap ones. My sister pointed out that the Le Creuset pot she inherited from her mother-in-law lasted a literal lifetime and outlasted the nice pots she had purchased. When it finally broke, the company replaced it. 

That pot addressed two schools of minimalism: fewer resources used to continue to replace an object and the money saved from not having to do so. Of course those pots are expensive and not an option for everyone, but…the reality is that sometimes we go cheap (not inexpensive) for the short-term gain and lose out on long-term benefits.

I never manage to stay put long enough to warrant purchasing high-end items; I haven’t made a habit of keeping most things long enough for it to matter since I shed my life every few years and start over somewhere else – often in a new country. 

But slowly, things of quality have found me: the cast iron skillet my mother seasoned and then passed on to me, the pot and knife I inherited from my friend. These are things that I wrap up carefully and put aside when I move. 

Minimalism has nuance for me now. There are various things for me to consider other than the ability to cram four years (or 40) into my car.

That doesn’t make me any more comfortable with purchasing things I know are not remotely essential. Right now I’m considering a carrot string peeler and a tiered spice rack…I’ll probably get the latter and ignore the former. It isn’t about cost; instead, it is about the amount of use it will get. And while I cook a lot, the ability to see my spices outweighs the novelty of thin strips of root vegetables. 

Whatever changes I’m going through, I am mindful of what I own, what I should acquire, and what I might purge. On the floor in my home right now is a television I never use, a bunch of clothes I never wear, and a hoard of papers vaguely related to past taxes. Their presence makes me at least as anxious as the idea of buying new things but infinitely easier for me to remedy. 

Stuff for stuff’s sake is horrible but all stuff isn’t bad. A minimalist by any other name (and for any number of reasons) I’m still searching for the balance.