Classifying Clutter

I've always felt that I have an aversion to clutter. When I was little, my mother had a very high tolerance for clutter. She never made us pick up our toys. They were always strewn around the living room unless she picked them up. When it was my time to be mom - I wouldn't tolerate that. My child was limited to three toys in the main living area at any given time. He could trash his room with his toys if he wanted to, but that door could be closed so I didn't have to see it.

I can't stand having newspapers or magazines scattered all over the place. I can't stand to have mail (especially old mail that nobody bothered to deal with) piled up. (My desk is a different story and anyone who's ever worked with me knows that my desk is not necessarily tidy. But I can find anything on it!) I keep a folder with coupons in it and from time to time I go through it to throw away those coupons that have expired without being used.

I used to have a shelf in the kitchen that was a catch-all. When I redesigned and remodeled the kitchen some years ago, that shelf got eliminated. It was my goal to just have a junk drawer and call it done. That hasn't worked as well as I would've liked and every now and again I have to mount a campaign to "reclaim" the table - or the baker's rack, or whatever place the clutter is taking over.

But since getting ready to sell the house I've come to understand that there's more to clutter than a pile of "stuff" on a tabletop or countertop. Some people also consider "collectibles" clutter. I know!! Who would have thought that having 15 or more fish plates hanging on one's wall would be considered clutter? Why would anyone assume that Fenton glass, or carnival glass, or pink depression glass, or Mexican pottery is clutter? Or hand blown glass fish?

Let's just use the fish plates as an example. I bought the first one years ago in Brittany - by chance. I stopped at a roadside shop and there it was!  Then we started looking for others. We found one in Arkansas after Mark caught a fish with his bare hands - it's a great memory, and I think of it every time I see that plate. We bought one fish plate on the way to Chichen Itza - haggled over the price (as you do). Another one, Delft blue, we bought in Amsterdam. Two were purchased in Spoleto, Italy. I remember seeing one of them in a shop window and revisiting the shop almost daily until we found a time it was actually open so we could buy it. We bought one in Hawaii on our 10th anniversary. Some were purchased in San Antonio and even Sherman, Texas. Each one represents a memory - even the ones that were gifts remind us of the givers. Will they all be on a wall when we get to Florida? - probably not. But it worked here in this house.

I know that when we went to visit Agatha Christie's house in Devon a few years ago, there were so many "collections". If she didn't have a big house and wasn't famous, she'd have been considered a hoarder. I don't think I've crossed that line - but I will say that I enjoy being surrounded by "things" that evoke pleasant memories.

You can call it clutter if you want to.