Claudia Myers column: Jackpot! You get all my stuff

There are probably one or two landfills out there with a sign on the front gates that says “Claudia’s Stuff” because I have periodically cleaned out and given, donated, sold or otherwise divested myself of at least one of those international shipping containers full of stuff. After all, I have moved eight times in my life and isn’t that what you do when you move to a different place? You purge your stuff.

My problem is that I don’t stay purged. I start over. I may try to fool myself by collecting different stuff, but I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. I know better. Pretty soon, instead of a collection of wooden potato mashers that I got rid of, I have an extensive display of vintage tin cracker boxes and the worst part of it is, I knew exactly what I was doing: starting a new collection of stuff.

My first 10 to teenage years were unremarkable in the collecting department. Two antique porcelain dolls, a few stuffed animals and my paper dolls. I loved my paper dolls! Lana Turner, Betty Grable, all the big 1940s movie stars. The fun part was making up new clothes for them. I used to send my “creations” into the Katy Keene comics, and a couple of times, they even published them! Early in my teens, I collected, read and re-read all the Nancy Drew and Carolyn Keene mysteries, so I had a big book collection. Then, when I was 17, we moved, and any leftover dolls, toys, games or other childhood things got purged.

Did that put an end to collecting? No way, because at 21, I was married, and thanks to shower and wedding gifts, I had more stuff than I could find places for. There were sheets and pots, plates, and pillows, three fondue sets (it was the beginning of the 60s), several silver platters and more hand-embroidered linen napkins than I could ever wash and iron. Someone gave us a camel saddle footstool and another one a wicked-looking knife-and-fork set in a carved wooden stand. We had crystal goblets of all sizes that stayed packed in their boxes for years before we could afford any wine to put in them. So much stuff!

Trouble was, we were living in a teeny one-bedroom apartment upstairs of an old house just off Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis, with one of those antique Hoosier wooden units for cupboards. 

I didn’t start collecting in earnest until we had a big Victorian house to fill up. That’s when I began with the wooden potato mashers and the vintage tin signs and biscuit boxes that I mentioned above. I think I’ve described the ugly man-eating-size daisies on the kitchen wallpaper? I hung and shelved my collection of stuff all around the kitchen to distract from the wallpaper after I had a nightmare that they were making hungry, slurpy noises every time I came into the kitchen.

I was at a quilt retreat in 2003, discussing “wants” versus “needs” with some friends. I said I had always admired the white-with-black gown that Audrey Hepburn wore to the horse races in “My Fair Lady” and wished I could find the Franklin Mint porcelain Audrey doll wearing that costume. One of my friends asked, “Have you looked on eBay?” In all innocence, I replied, “What’s eBay?” Well!  Talk about creating a monster! Pretty soon, not only did I have Audrey in her Derby ensemble, But Jackie Kennedy in her gorgeous wedding gown, Scarlett O’Hara in her green-and-white organza with the big straw hat, Princess Diana in the winter gown with the plaid taffeta skirt and Elizabeth Taylor, poor thing, who arrived naked. I took pity on her and made her a slinky, green satin gown with feathers. I didn’t keep them in their boxes but rather scattered them around our house so people could look at them. Sad to say, when we moved the next time, they were “purged.” I sometimes wish I hadn’t done that.

Of course, being a sewist and a quilter, I’ve always had boxes of fabrics, ribbons, lace, notions and thread, but we call those things “Our Stash,” and they don’t count as a collection, nor do they identify you as a hoarder when, at times, your creative space is so crammed there is no way you can get in there without turning sideways.

 Do you know that if you have tidy, specific places to store all your stuff, it is labeled “my craft supplies”? But, if it is piled on every chair, overflowing onto the floor, hiding under the bed or lurking in a dark corner of your broom closet, it is called “clutter.” If, as I mentioned above, you can’t walk into your sewing room without climbing over and on top of obstacles, you might have to take action. Time for another purge? 

A while ago, there was an altruistic thought going around that we, as elder people, should get rid of all or most of our stuff so our poor, distraught children wouldn’t have to deal with it. I started out trying my best to become an unwilling minimalist when I made a momentous decision. I decided: Let ’em deal with it. After all, didn’t I take care of all their stuff for the first decade and a half they were alive?

Jackpot, kids! Congratulations, you get all my stuff!