Dust And Ashes

[poliphilo]

I've been up into the attic. I don't like it there. I don't like having to climb the ladder. I don't like the dust. And I don't know what to do with bags full of engagement diaries dating back to the 1940s.

I've brought some stuff down with me. Some things for keeping- and redistributing round the house, some for the charity shop and some for the bin. But there's so much more. Most of it I look at, sigh over and return to its place.

It's a job for the younger generation- for people who are physically fit and unsentimental. What I'd like is for one of my children or my niece or nephew to go up there and be totally brutal with what they find...

Comments

[clindau.livejournal.com]

I think this is what my mom thought when she didn't want to deal with her house full of stuff. "Fight over it after I'm gone" is what she said. Six months after her passing, we haven't fought over many of her possessions (but we have fought), but boy do we wish she had told us if there was anything she wanted to go to a particular child, or someplace else. It's a matter of "Mom said this" or "I was there when she said (insert wish here)". Without a paper trail, it's all hearsay now.

My advice is to gather the interested younger members of your family, have them bring the stuff down from the attic, and deal with it right there and then. They do the work, and you get an empty attic. Make a weekend of it. Make your wishes known.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

My impression- I could be wrong- is that the younger generation isn't particularly interested in the old curiosity shop we find ourselves curating.

Of course, not all the stuff is my mother's. Some of it is ours.

[clindau.livejournal.com]

The stuff accumulates, and with a handy out-of-sight-out-of-mind place like an attic, even more so. Best to have a go at it sooner, it frees up space for new stuff...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm doing bits.

I've got quite a lot of stuff bagged up for the charity shop. And I've thrown other things away.

It just seems bottomless. It was the same when we were clearing our old house prior to moving down here. We'd shift car loads of rubbish and it never seemed to make any difference. But it does, of course- it does.

[basefinder.livejournal.com]

I also dislike attics. Always dusty, and always too hot or too cold.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Sometimes, of course, they turn out to have Rembrandts in them...