I am a woman always in search of a new decluttering strategy. I did spend ages (well, a few hours) trying to put into action Marie Kondo’s Japanese tidying strategy of only keeping objects that “sparked joy”. I don’t know if I am just lacking in joy, or sparks, but mostly as I held my objects in my hand I felt only mild embarrassment that I was doing such a thing.
The latest idea is Swedish death decluttering, which is cleaning out your stuff before you die so that no one else has to do it when you peg it. You can’t have moved house as much as I have (continents, towns, downsizing, upsizing, I’ve done it all) and be a hoarder. I have, though, kept almost every letter sent to me.
They live in a corner of one room and last year the pile expanded considerably when my mother gave me back all the letters I had written to her over the years. Reading them, particularly those mad ones from the college years, which always ended with an OTT plea for cash, is like seeing yourself via a kaleidoscopic memory pool.
It is a great shame that emails have replaced letters. No one will keep the printed-off versions, probably because they just look ugly and identical. I am sure that when my children are 60 they won’t be looking back at themselves via a stash of emails.
My thankless task
My thoughts have turned to letter-writing because I am behind on my thank-you notes for Christmas. Oh the guilt! Never mind that my Christmas giving this year was such a failure that none of my presents arrived in time and some didn’t arrive at all because I never sent them (sorry sister Maeve). I felt bad about that, of course, but know it can be remedied. But the guilt of not giving is not even in the same universe as the guilt of not thanking. I can hear the voice of my grandmother admonishing me over not writing those notes. But I absolutely refuse to give in and do the easy thing, which is to bash out a few emails. Some standards must be kept even if it means thank-you notes arriving just before Easter.
Advertisement
Snail support
I wrote last week about the thriller writer Patricia Highsmith and her pet snails which she often carried with her in her handbag, with a “snacking lettuce” to satisfy them. For some reason, and I actually blame Thameslink and its terrible delays last week, I wrote that she lived in Sussex but, of course, that should have been Suffolk.
Several readers reminded me that Highsmith was so keen on her slimy companions that, when she went to France, she smuggled them over the border by tucking them under each breast in her bra. I’ve heard of bromance but this, surely, was a bra-mance.
Save our stations
My local police station is closing in both places where I live, Bakewell and Barnet. It’s a trend because it’s relatively easy to do but that doesn’t make it right. Policing is a bit like justice: it is not good enough that it is done, it needs to be seen to be done.
The clue to community policing is in the name. It’s not something that can be done by drone. Sack a few middle managers and stop selling off the stations: it’s madness and you will miss them when they’re gone.
All’s well that dress well
How wonderful for me that it’s shaping up to be a Bard-tastic year in the theatre. Last week I saw the little-produced All’s Well That Ends Well. This particular revival didn’t bear out the optimism of the title but the language is still deliciously enveloping. At one point, a character is insulted as a “snipt-taffeta fellow”. This means, essentially, flashily dressed. Love it.