The Meaning of Things
With three growing boys and two dogs to feed, it felt as if I was at the grocery on a daily basis. Lists that included snacks for the team, treats for the dogs and the dreaded what’s for dinner tonight made the grocery like exercise, something that needed to be done. But those rainy day trips with just a few extra minutes before carpool, I would find myself in the magazine aisle anxiously searching for the next issue of Dwell magazine. As my fingers slid back the pages, I found myself instantly transcended to a place where my life was no longer spent tripping over shoes and backpacks. There amongst the pages, I was fabulously yet casually dressed as I moved beautifully through my clutter-free minimalist modern life with perfectly placed pillows and crystal clean glass never once worrying about ducking to miss a flying lacrosse ball or stepping in something the dog left behind.
I could never get myself to subscribe to Dwell, too much of a commitment, too much a reminder of my own crazy life or maybe deep down I so looked forward to those quiets moments in the grocery aisle; just me and the latest issue sneaking in a few quiet moments together among the carts and the crowds. Each time the magazine landed in my cart carefully placed on the juice boxes and cereal; a subscription would definitely have been cheaper, but the experience would not have been the same.
Dreaming of a minimalist lifestyle in the aisles of Kroger is one thing, living it, another. Like anything we aspire to, action is required and for a minimalist that often means letting go. I knew the shoes and backpacks would one day be gone, I just wasn’t ready. Our wonderfully traditional home enveloped us in its space for more, its closets and cabinets, basements and backyard offering our family a place to grow and also acquire. Twenty-two years spent there and I often wonder if things would have been different raising our sons now that we live in this modern home. Would we have acquired as much? Would we have found ways to fit it all in? We now have more square footage but each room with its walls of windows almost quietly asks us to let it go, to find more space.
I think it’s true what Frank Lloyd Wright said, “Space is the breath of art.” Space gives us room to breathe, room to create, room to be. So how we create our spaces speaks volumes to how we want to be, not always how things are. When my husband Rob and I were first starting out, fabric covered cardboard boxes stood proudly as end tables and yard sale finds served our needs leaving space for what would come. When the boys were teenagers just gently closing the door to their room made space for peace in the home knowing one day their beds would no longer need to be made everyday. Continual purging of toys and outgrown clothing freed up overflowing drawers and closets but too often made space for more. I think about that, space for more.
Striving for a more minimalist existence, my goal now is to make space for space. To intentionally place things in my home which hold meaning. It means no longer dusting items that are there only for appearance’s sake, those things are making their way to someone else’s shelf via a favorite charitable organization. Now as I dust, I smile as books are held in place by porcelain bookends inherited from my great aunt as well as the rocks that were smuggled into pockets from our many RV adventures; these things hold meaning and so they are granted space.
There are empty walls waiting for the right art and some art holding space for the next meaningful piece and if I am patient the right piece will find me, just like this home patiently waited at the end of the street all those years. In acquiring this home, we are learning to let go, to create space not necessarily for more things, but for more memories to be made; more walks in the woods; more time with family and friends, more moments being present learning how to just be, to dwell among these walls that have made a space for us. It is amazing how architecture can teach us so much about living and I am forever grateful for these real life lessons graciously designed for us by those who dreamed of this home, who hands built it and whose hearts lived here before us. Thank you for holding space for me.
