Seniors' Health Fair Downtown - March 25, 2015

would like to invite you to

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Seniors’ Health Fair

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

9:30 am - 3:00 pm

West End YMCA

931 College Street (@Dovercourt)

Toronto ON

There is a Green P parking lot on Harrison Street, 

if you are driving south from College on Dovercourt

Hope to see you there - 

I will be there to talk with you about Downsizing!

Download the event poster, as well as the event summary

Greetings from Downsizing Diva Toronto Southwest

Greetings from Downsizing Diva!

Last year, I was hired by a gentleman who was five years behind on processing all the paper that comes to his residence:  everything from receipts and statements to correspondence to printed-out e-mails to Christmas cards.  I spent about 30 hours getting this aspect of his life organized, much to his delight.  Six boxes to the professional shredding company.  Later in the year I met someone else who was falling behind as well, stymied by the design of her shredder –

Born to be a shredder

-in order to empty it, she had to lift the heavy mechanism to get at the shredded paper below.  Her dilemma was really in her lack of hand-strength.  To her delight I was able to find a shredder for her with a radically-different design:  you see that black handle in front of the shredded paper - the light-weight plastic drawer pulls out easily when it is time to empty it.  In modern parlance, I guess this would be a “shout-out” to Staples for their “MailMate” shredder!  

I thought it would be fun, this year, to use my newsletter to highlight other useful products that make life easier, no matter how old you are! 

p.s.  My big trick at home, managing paper, is to hide it in a basket below a kitchen counter, so I don’t have to look at it.  I know it’s there, when I feel up to it, but it doesn’t stare at me every day!
   
All the best to you in 2015!  

Never Mind the mess

The wind is gusting as I write this:  a reminder of our holiday ice crisis here in southern Ontario.  In the aftermath, the sun came out while my son and I were driving through the Don Valley, suddenly a valley festooned with shimmering diamonds!  I hope you too were safe and able to enjoy moments of winter pleasure during those challenging days. 

During the holidays I decided to tackle the toys lurking underneath my middle son’s bed, deciding, first and foremost, that bins under beds should have lids:  no one wants to play with a dusty toy.  There I found a bin containing hundreds of small stones, each one unique, hand-picked by one of my sons on one or another warm summer day.  My favourite featured a tiny, perfectly-formed fossilized sea creature.  Since downsizing was the goal, not discarding outright, I went through them handful by handful, salvaging the ones that had interesting qualities.  Inevitably, I grew wistful about the boys’ childhood times of seeking and finding treasures like these, and even my own early days spent on the shores of Lake Huron.

Through this sorting exercise, I came to understand in a deeper way an elderly client of mine who passed away last year, whose abandoned house was, quite simply, filled with newspapers.  A special company had to be called in, and a month spent emptying the house after he died, rousting out the racoons who had been letting themselves in for years through an upper window. 

During Keith’s last years in a nursing home, his room would continually be overwhelmed by newspapers, and he was wistful about them, asking for scissors so he could review and cut out particular articles.  The energy to do so was long gone, but clearly his treasure on this earth was knowledge, and engagement with the world of today.  He was known to have provided financial support for the studies of several young people in the family.  He told stories about the decades he had spent in Ontario rail yards, as a liquid loads expert.  His eyes would sparkle, seeing me walk in with a handful of mail and newspapers.    A house full of newspapers is eloquent in its own way, when you know the context. 

How to Avoid a Fall

Last spring, I participated in a Healthy Living Fair, and a lovely older man, Alan, won a three-hour organizing session in the draw that I held that day.  I called him some days later, to drop off the “no expiration” gift certificate that he had won.  First of all, Alan conveyed his amazement at winning.  Only twice in his life had he won anything.  Secondly, frankly, organizing wasn't really on his agenda.  I believed him.  There was no tension in his voice as he talked about how much he loves where he’s living.  He will probably live there for a good long while to come.  We agreed that he would call me if he needed help with any “overwhelming” domestic project.

One of my first clients, Joyce, was not as well-informed as Alan.  Five years before I met Joyce, she had tried to move out of her townhouse, into a condo, but she was not aware of services like Downsizing Diva, and the transition was scuttled.  By the time I met Joyce, five years later, her eyesight  had deteriorated to the point where she could not “tell” if things in the house needed cleaning.  She was negotiating the stairs in her townhouse on her hands and knees, dragging laundry down to the basement and then back up to her bedroom, on the second floor.  As far as I could tell, laundry was the only domestic activity still being carried out.  I would call that activity heroic at this point in Joyce’s life.

Joyce had retired from a long teaching career  and I could see, working in the house, that she had delved deeply into hobbies and interests, and had traveled widely.  A loving sister-in-law and nephew arrived regularly to take her out for dinner.  However, it had been quite some time since she had been able to welcome them into her home, physically, and indeed, as I found out later, her neighbours had also been turned away, and were almost always worried about her.  Extreme clutter had robbed Joyce of her freedom of movement and impacted on her relationships.   She was falling almost every day, and on the day of the move fell quite badly, from her own front step, and so spent the move day in the hospital, under observation.

You can imagine everyone’s relief when, with help, Joyce finally managed to extricate herself from an untenable situation, into an assisted- living building, where, as she had carefully planned, she could keep her cat.  If the mantra for real estate is “location, location, location,” I would like to suggest that the mantra for residential downsizing is “timing, timing, timing.”  

Thanks again for reading….join me next month for a look at how paper shapes our lives.
 

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A Blast from the Distant Past

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.