I have yearnings to be a minimalist. A minimalist expat. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with all those possessions that get bagged and boxed and shipped and stored and moved and schlepped around the globe. I’d be rid of most of that stuff living and breeding in drawers and cupboards and shelves and boxes.
Like all this fabric from Africa — endless colorful meters going unseen and neglected in a storage box. I so loved them when I bought them in Ghana, West Africa. The colors! The designs! Surely I’d find something really creative to do with them. But no, here they are, years later, languishing in the dark.
Do you know what these things are? They’re called podstakanniki, tea glass holders, the ones you are presented with when you travel on Russian trains, or so I hear (I’ve never traveled on Russian trains.) Why do I have a collection of them? Well, I thought they were so cool when once I was served tea in them in a restaurant in Yerevan, Armenia, a former Soviet republic. I thought it would be unique to serve my guests tea in them, so I rummaged around in the Vernissage, the fabulous flea market in Yerevan, and picked one up here and there, now and then. For fun, you know. But I never ended up getting the glasses that fit in them, and the friends I generally collect along the expat trail are more the wine-drinking types. So here they are, my lovely podstakanniki, about a dozen of them, stashed away in a box on a shelf.
I dream of living a simpler, less cluttered life. To be at peace and spend time meditating sitting on the floor in an almost empty room. Just a decorative plant peacefully spreading its oxygen. Perhaps a little incense burning and mind-altering music playing in the background. You know what I mean. Maybe just a serene picture of a mountain on a wall, a pretty candle, a few colorful cushions . . . well, there I go again, filling up the space.
Yes, I have yearnings to be a minimalist. But it eludes me.
I swear I spend my wandering expat life selling and giving away stuff when I move – towels and pots and pans and furniture and clothes. But the universe loves a vacuum it is said, so lo and behold I seem to have more stuff next time around.
I love these hand-painted dishes. I bought them in the Old City of Jerusalem and in Hebron while we lived in Palestine. I have more than you see on the photo. I do use one or two of them. Not all the time, but sometimes. So really, why should I hold on to them?
If you’ve been taking careful notes while reading all my previous posts, you know I made another one of those chaotic transatlantic moves a few months ago. My mate and I relocated from Moldova in Eastern Europe to the US, back into our fully furnished and equipped American house that had stood empty, pining for our return.
The time came when our shipment from Moldova arrived and I started unpacking boxes and putting stuff away and while doing this I had a blinding moment of enlightenment: We have too much stuff! Or to be honest, I have too much stuff. My prince can live out of a backpack, and would even prefer to.
I don’t consider myself a collector of stuff. I don’t have shelves full of Elvis Presley memorabilia, handcuffs, toasters, air sickness bags or dryer lint. I’m not a shopper, I don’t like shopping, I’m not much of a consumer at all unless it’s going on vacation to fabulous places like Rome or Paris and spending money on food and wine. But . . . .
While I was finding room for our possessions that had just arrived from Moldova I went through all the things in the house I hadn’t looked at for ages. I was stunned to discover that really, I do have proper collections! Objects gathered in different places in the world like the above mentioned African fabric and Russian tea glass holders.
Look at these things! What am I doing with 30 plus liqueur glasses? All different, pretty, unique, some even antique. How did I ever get that collection? Well, it started innocently enough with a few pretty ones inherited from family. Then I started seeing other ones here and there, and then people started giving me one now and again because they knew I liked them.
I hardly ever drink a liqueur. When I have a dinner party almost never does anyone want a liqueur. So what am I doing with them now? This is not a minimalist approach to owning things.
And what about these African beads? I have a large bin full of them, kilos and kilos of them. Why, you ask? Because they are gorgeous and when I lived in Ghana, buying beads was so much fun because they were everywhere and you can make fabulous jewelry with them. And yes, I actually have made a few necklaces. However, I have enough to start a business and string beads from now till kingdom come. But I don’t. So the bin with beads sits in the basement, being no good to anyone.
If I want to be a true minimalist, I should just sell or give all of these things away. But I don’t really want to. I kinda like these useless trinkets. But rest assured that if the house burned down I wouldn’t weep over them.
I so admire people who are true minimalists, don’t you? I long to be one, really, but I might as well admit to myself that there is no hope for me in the minimalist department.