Occasionally — very occasionally — I am gripped by a completely alien urge to tidy up; to clear out the clutter, let go of what I don’t need, and find a place for the things I do.
So, today, I tackled the unholy mess that has haunted me for months. Acres of books and bags full of mysterious things, all crying out to be catalogued and put away, neatly, in a cupboard or on a shelf. It’s always something of an emotional experience to tidy out clutter, because that’s your past lurking at the bottom of that box, or crammed carelessly into the nearest receptacle you could find. In amidst the stray staplers and till slips from Clicks eight years ago (inflation has been shocking) lie our abandoned dreams and discarded memories. This is all that remains of the hobby you started; that’s the brochure for the place where you fantasised about living, once.
Most of the stuff I found was desperately uninteresting: wires for a modem from nineteenvoetsek, old handbags gravelly with crumbs, file after file of reference material for my thesis. On the plus side, I did find my gender studies paper on Roger Ballen (it seems I was quite critical of him, accusing him of disempowering his subjects). In amongst all the paper were the kind of things I really do want to keep: copies of the student journal I edited, articles I’ve written. And yes, the notebook, most of its pages ripped out, which contain lines of poetry written by my ex-husband. I think. It could only be him: it’s an ambivalent ode to Naboomspruit, the town where he grew up, and I can’t imagine my late mother-in-law turning her hand to poetry. These rhyming couplets will be left unmolested at the bottom of a box.
Funny thing: I had no idea he ever wrote poetry.
In one reused shopping bag was a map of Toronto, a souvenir of our trip to North America in 2001. Would it ever come in useful again? I put it aside for safekeeping. You never know. There was evidence of past forays into art everywhere, most of it in ready-made frames bought from Boardmans — pastel portraits of horses and my ongoing experimentation with lipstick: roses, apples, proteas. There will never be enough wall space for it, and I can’t help but wonder whether any of this could be of any value to somebody else. It’s as if, in lying in a box or stacked against a wall, art is of no purpose (surely it is meant to be looked at) and therefore of no use.
One thing I was pleased no end to find was the nurse’s outfit I’d worn for a client golf day. I’ll never wear it again, but there are some good memories there, amidst the ickiness of the entire concept: all of us agency girls dressed up and massaging sweaty golfers while feeding them shooters, to raise money for charity. (I was Nurse Busty, a moniker I felt was somewhat lacking in accuracy.) It was good to bond like that and feel part of the team, something I crave from time to time.
But the find that thrilled me the most was a file containing drawings from my childhood. There was my Std 1 Transvaal Onderwysdepartement book, filled with lines of excruciatingly neat cursive (what the hell happened?). Then there were drawings in pencil and koki pen tackling various subjects, most of them horses, and my costume designs for the Std 5 production of Huckleberry Finn. My favourite is probably this helicopter, drawn when I was 11, and definitely from my Airwolf phase. The waterbuck in this koki creation, drawn when I was 5 going on 6, is on the back of a Weet-Bix box (clearly paper was in short supply in our household back then). On the back is a message encouraging children to collect cards featuring the Springboks and the Lions for the 1980 rugby Tour. Even the price: 69c.
In clearing out clutter, we become our own archaeologists, sifting through the layers of our personal history. We are challenged to choose what is worth keeping and what isn’t; what defines or expresses who we are, and what is merely a thing that we once desired and then put away somewhere, anywhere, because we had no idea what to do with it, but couldn’t bear to throw it away.
I’ve cleared away the worst of the chaos that lodged itself into my conscience and gestated there. Now, I must put everything in its place (and that will be a challenge of monumental proportions in itself). The truth is, though, it’s still so very hard to let go.
This takes me back awhile. My first true love was the blonde girl with the pigtails on the original Weet-Bix box. I still have a tin with her picture on. Sigh.
“We are challenged to choose what is worth keeping and what isn’t; what defines or expresses who we are, and what is merely a thing that we once desired and then put away somewhere, anywhere, because we had no idea what to do with it, but couldn’t bear to throw it away.”
A potent truth.
Nice article, I guess it must be a human thing. Sifting through old stuff, realising how banal your life is and not really caring.
Sorry! I got utterly distracted after getting to Nurse Busty. Can you repeat the question?
(Nurse Busty, hey?…hmmmm….)
I love how you handled the brown negative space between blades of yellow veldt grass. That’s some painstaking koki work.
Loved this piece, since I’m very much in the same boat. Sorted through stacks of old photographs and letters recently, and read through our love letters from 20 years ago. My husband passed away recently, and it was, and is, hard to let go and move on.
I love the tantalising glimpses you get of that long ago relationship, cryptic references to tiffs I don’t even remember, (did we ever fight? Really? I don’t remember that) how desperately we missing each other when only apart for a weekend …:D
Impressive linework on the helicopter. Were there any ‘A Team’ drawings in the mix? If not, there’s still time. I’ll wait.
Memories. “Most desperately uninteresting” yes, but finding those few things that jolt the memory makes it worth it. Ah, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be . . .
Ballen turns his subjects into grotesques, which is dehumanising. A slightly stronger charge than the one of disempowerment.
Cool article. I got back from overseas recently and took stuff out of storage which had been sitting there for 5 years. I had completely forgotten that most of it even existed. Amazing, sifting through crap that really reflected my experiences, dreams and desires of those times and years. Its sweet and sour for me always, nice to remember good times and beautiful experiences, but sad to realise that we remember only the extreme highs and lows, only fragments of our lives, the remainder being humdrum and forgotten. Life is so banal, yet extraordinary. Thanks for making me relive it.
PS Nurse Busty? Woooopaaaaaaaaaa!
Hate to admit this, but your stuff often makes me cry. There’s so much humanity in it. Having just packed up 30 years of Joburg and moved across the country, boy, can I identify with this.