Almost four years ago, I myself downsized into an apartment in Riverdale, following separation and divorce. My three sons and I set about downsizing our belongings. Some toys, books and games were precious enough to be stored in my mother’s storage locker in the building where she lives. Each son has a bin there as well, full of keepsakes. My hope, I guess, is that someday they or their children will be interested in these “material biographies.” This process took enormous physical, emotional and cognitive effort, but it launched us into a welcome new phase of our lives. According to my oldest son, we now have the “comfiest apartment in Toronto!”
Some months ago, I helped clear out a one-bedroom apartment in a retirement residence. The mum had been moved to the “nursing wing,” and her son John met with me to look at what was left and decide how to proceed. On the final day of the clear-out, behind a piece of furniture, I discovered a dusty old art portfolio and in that folder was some of John’s childhood artwork, produced during the Second World War. This mum, who turns 102 this year, had been taking care of these particular things for at least 68 years, and John seemed, in his own modest way, happy to receive them, at our last meeting. Even though I didn’t have a chance to meet John’s mum, I feel I know her a little, and enjoy the fact that I’m not the only one storing things perceived to be valuable: I too have carefully stored binders full of the boys’ artwork. My motivation lies in the fact that when I reached “a certain age,” as a young adult, I gathered my own archives around me to try and understand better who I had become, in the light of who I had been.
Somewhere in the middle, there is a way to forge ahead, when downsizing becomes necessary. New organizing systems, digital or not, come into play. What is wonderful, I think, is that the material things that are truly essential come well into focus: the things we love and need, the things that tell stories about our lives. To quote Anthony Lawlor, from his book A Home for the Soul, “Taken together, the rooms of a home encompass the full circle of the soul.” I’ve seen this new room in the nursing wing, where John’s mum now lives, and I could still see that full circle framing her in her hospital bed.
Thank you for reading….join me next month for a downsizing story with a dramatic exit.
