Marie Kondo’s book is now so popular that kondo’ing is an understood verb. I thought I had grasped the concept during my previous move, from Washington, DC to Oakland, CA. I reduced my volume of possessions applying a good chunk of the lessons from her book. I agreed with the concept that I should choose to surround myself with things that bring me joy. So I naively thought I knew how to downsize the Oakland house into storage as I transitioned to traveling the world for a year.
Friends, there are many more levels to kondo’ing!
Does this bed frame bring me joy? Dirty clothes hamper? Ironing board? Frying pan? Electric toothbrush? Could another version of it in the future bring me joy, or is there something intrinsic in this particular piece suggesting I should store it? Or even travel with it?!
There were ‘no brainers’ for storage, like the street artist’s sketch of me done on Montmartre in Paris when I was 18 – that is irreplaceable and has been carefully wrapped up for its vacation in storage. And there were ‘no brainers’ for releasing, like the picnic basket set I never used. But there are lots of categories in between that pushed my emotions and poked at my identity.
For this post, I will talk about the dishes.
Wedgwood Queensware Lavender Blue on Cream Shell Edge to be specific. And I admit, I only very recently looked up the name of this pattern.
Who gave them to me? My maternal grandmother.
Occasion? I was told by my mother that the set was packed up and tagged to become mine whenever I got married. After my mother moved houses with “Ann’s Dishes” for the umpteenth time, she finally brought the large carton to me and we laughed about how outdated it was to wait for a wedding. This was ‘real Wedgwood’. These were capital D “Dishes”. So I used them dutifully, and daily. Occasionally I would lament that food would get stuck in the nooks and crannies of the grapevine details, adding a little more effort to dishwashing. But I had dishes that someone I loved wanted me to have.
Recent reflection? Is it possible that my grandmother simply wanted new china herself, and so she boxed up her set to make room for something that she liked better? Was this china truly meant to be a ‘starter set’ that she never expected I would have past my 50th birthday? Why did these questions never occur to me before?? Did having china contribute to my identifying as successful, accomplished, or refined? Would I possibly have more joy from a different set of dishes, or from not having dishes at all?
Considerations? In a quest to determine if there was ‘value’ to the dishes, besides what I had attributed to them through family lore, I connected with Replacements Ltd and received their list of what they would offer per piece in my pattern. Some of the pieces they didn’t even want. Ouch. It was hard to tell if I had the $4 coffee pot or the $37 coffee pot. And even if twelve luncheon plates could draw $24 (no, I’ve never had a dozen people over for lunch), I would still have to pay to get them to North Carolina.
Fate? I had never doubted their place in my life before, but it was a quick shift to being ready to say goodbye to the china. There was even a brief moment when I wondered how much fun it would be to throw them against a wall (maybe just the few chipped ones?) but I decided they could still be useful, to someone. Understandably, none of my friends were interested. I frankly didn’t have the time or energy for one more craigslist experience. So they got packed up and taken to Goodwill.
I’m hoping that someone else now is enjoying the charm of having Wedgwood china. Perhaps imagining life at Downton Abbey. And thinking the coffee tastes lovely out of the ‘priceless’ pot.
I read a blog post once called “Your Children Don’t Want Your Old Stuff,” or something like that. It got me going on dispositioning many family things (sentimental or not), because I didn’t have the children to gift/will them too. Your dishes will end up with someone else, who will love them, and you have this blog post as their legacy.