What’s Really Important
I’ve been struggling a lot with minimalism. It feels constricting, and it begs immediacy. “Have 37 items of clothing for 3 months” “Reduce your possessions to 100 items” “Start a 30-day decluttering challenge” A lot of the very blogs that have been purporting these mantras have recently started to shuck their boxes for a more encompassing approach... But after reading that last article, about how any focus on minimalism still makes “stuff” the emphasis of our lives? I want nothing to do with it.
Especially now. I have been struggling very seriously with the death of my grandfather. In three days he will have been gone for a year. He gave me the greatest gift he could have ever given me, and it wasn’t monetary, nor was it purposeful: it was his badass musician genes. I wish I also shared his drive about music; it really fueled him, and I envy the idea of having anything so compelling to fuel me. Even on his deathbed he was given a guitar to play, and like the jokester he always was, his last words were, “Can somebody get me a pick?” because everyone knew he never played without one.
That’s what’s really important: knowing what you love, what you’ll want on your deathbed. My grandpa was simple, I always admired that about him. He wanted the love of his life, a guitar, and a guitar pick. Done. Wht are my deathbed desires? That’s a question I’d like to be able to answer someday soon. And I can already bet you the answer is going to be “people” in some way, shape, or form...
For perspective, I always find it recentering to scroll through The Burning House, a blog that invites submissions of what folks would grab if their house was burning. Photos, mementos, childhood nostalgia; computers, phones, cameras; passports, travel trinkets, books, records... People choose many different things, but I think this perspective from Stef of Adelaide, AU, explains best why it doesn’t really matter what you choose:
As someone who’s actually been through the ‘house is burning’ situation, there are very few thoughts that help you to process. You come to acknowledge that everything you once had were just things and nothing more, if only to help you heal. You are thankful that no one got hurt. You don’t think about your favourite book or camera gear, no matter how much you spent on it. Those are not the things you’ll cry over, and they’re not the things that will still make you cry to think about years later.
I’ve been exceedingly upset this week because the guitar pictured above—that my grandfather gifted to me on his deathbed, that I played in concert with him when I toured with them for three weeks two months before he passed—my friend borrowed it to change the strings for me (a task I should be amply capable of by now) and somehow has broken it internally. Broken a symbol of the person I loved most in the whole world, who I will never see again.
I have been going through the stages of grief about that guitar. So far I’ve hit denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. But the truth is, I don’t really need that guitar: I need my grandfather back. I need his jokes and his calm and his drama-free, hands-off approach to everything. That’s what I’m really grieving. Not some piece of well-carved wood.
Everything I once had was just a thing and nothing more, if only to help me heal.
So would I grab that guitar in a fire? I don’t know. But it feels good to get my head in a bit more of a “ride or die” mode, especially since I’m hoping to sell most of my possessions and travel considerably come June. More on that in the next post!
Editor’s Note: A friend asked if I was updating this, and I haven’t been. But I think about it a lot, and mostly resolve that no one’s reading this or giving any fucks, so why bother putting energy into it? Also my bedroom floor looks like consumerist lava right now so I’m a bit embarrassed to be running a “minimalism” blog. But if people are reading, if this is helping someone, even one person, then yeah, I’m going to update it more regularly. Is it you?