All That is Not A Ladder Falls Away
By Sterling Hawkins, MSW, LCSW-C, LICSW
In March, we reached the one-year mark of living through the Pandemic. In a state of uncertainty when the lives of thousands were lost during the initial spread of Covid, I found myself thinking about letting go. Less than a year earlier I had sifted through the remaining contents of my mother’s personal effects after my wife and I had cleaned out my mom’s studio apartment following her death. Those items that survived the first purge ended up in my basement. The photographs, books, kitchen utensils along with her personal files, linens, towels, and other items. After sifting through photographs and old funeral programs of other deceased family members and friends, some I filed neatly away. These were items I wanted to keep because they preserved the memory of the person. A similar event occurred in 2005 after my father’s death. And, before that in 1998 after my grandmother’s death. The process of discovery, discarding, and donating items enabled me to create emotional bookmarks and helped me to detach from things that served no practical or emotional need other than it was owned by a family member now deceased.
Over the past year, I’ve reflected on these events and my own accumulation of stuff that I now consider non-essential. Back in March, I stumbled across an article in the New Yorker Magazine by Ann Patchett titled “ How to Practice.” In the article the author tells the story of her own journey into discovery, discarding, and donating that was prompted by the death of Kenneth who was the father of her closest childhood friend, and how this served as an inspiration to reassess her attachment to some of her own possessions and let them go. Patchett describes the attachments we forge with things over time and how many of those attachments in the end no longer serve to define us in the way we want to be known.
In thinking about ” How to Practice” I’m reminded of the awkwardness often felt when examining the accumulation of things that are far removed from our daily existence. “Bookmarks” as I often refer to them or “snapshots”, represent a part of the past, evoking pleasant and sometimes painful memories. I believe Patchett in describing her experience reminds us of several things when reflecting on our relationship with personal possessions.
Our life is a collection of the things that define us but often these things along with their definitions change over time.
Most of what we possess is useful only for a limited time. We form attachments to objects in a similar way we do with people. We spend time with our things. Clothing universally is something that we can become attached to. I remember owning a full-length salt and pepper tweed coat that I purchased at a second-hand thrift shop as a college student. The look and feel of it made me want to wear it, whenever the temperature dipped below fifty degrees. And, wear it I did for many years long after under-grad and graduate school I still had the coat and even obtained a piece of silk to hand-sew a new lining. Eventually, the exterior became shabby with age forcing me to accept the fact that the coat had served me well but needed to be let go as seams separated and buttonholes widened from frequent wear. This was not the only winter coat I owned. However, it was the only one that I felt attached to.
Who will want what we leave behind after our death?
In the article, Patchett recounts how Kenneth the father of her friend left detailed instructions regarding those items he willed to family and friends. “Tavia got the fourteen-inch All-Clad covered saute’ pan, Therese got the extensive collection of light bulbs, Tavia got the blue wool blanket, Therese got the midsize dehumidifier. The list went on and on: art, artifacts, household supplies. Since neither Tavia nor Therese [Kenneth’s daughters] had space for more than a few mementos, they decided to sell most of their inheritance and split the proceeds equally.” I believe we each must accept the fact that sometimes we over-inflate the value of the things we own. Perhaps not intentionally, but because it somehow serves to satisfy our need to preserve their value even after we’re no longer around to celebrate the original joy we received from owning them. Often, such items hold only a sentimental value that is personal, and one that is rarely transferrable.
Imagining one’s own death as a spiritual practice to detach from possessions that no longer define us.
I’m reflecting on my history and my attachment to things I’ve collected over the years that hold some sentimental value, but mainly take up space. These items have no monetary value. The few items that do, I have contemplated placing on Craig’s List just to ease my conscience for reasons like Tavia and Therese wanting to exchange them for money that I can use to buy something else more relevant to my present life. I sit and look at old books that line my shelves written by little-known authors whose names I’ve forgotten. Incomplete sets of china and a few paintings by artists passed down and lost to antiquity. Files of papers from classes I enjoyed writing as a student that survived multiple moves cross country, and posters from my teenage years that remain secure in a mailing tube. Imagining that I will relinquish such attachments when I die forces me to accept that these things hold meaning only because I have attached meaning to them. If this sounds familiar, questions we should be asking ourselves are: Do I feel burdened by keeping these items? If your answer is yes it’s important to know why you feel this and what type of burden is placed on you. Do these items limit the physical or emotional enjoyment of your living environment (home or work)? Why do I feel the need to keep certain items? And, would I feel shame or a sense of betrayal towards someone for relinquishing items given to me by another person even if they are no longer alive or connected to my present life? Do I feel the need to keep things because of the good memories attached to them? And, finally, Do I use or display these possessions often enough to make keeping them worthwhile? Answering such questions while acknowledging our eventual death weakens the bonds our possessions have on us. In letting go, we accept the natural progression of time and that our relationship with the things we own often changes along with us.
Embracing the emotional fallout of letting go.
The process of detaching from items we own is ladened with emotion. Emotions we are unaccustomed to feeling and ill-prepared to navigate as we begin the complex process of letting go. Patchett writes, “ I started in the kitchen, a room that’s friendly and overly familiar. . . I filled the laundry basket with the things I didn’t want or need and carried those discards to the basement. I made the decision to wait until we’d finished with the entire house before trying to find a place for things we were getting rid of. This was a lesson I’d picked up from my work: writing must be separate from editing, and if you try to do both at the same time nothing will get done. . . What I had didn’t surprise me half as much as how I felt about it: the unexpected shame that came from owning seven mixing bowls, the guilt over never having made good use of the electric juicer my mother had given me, and strangest of all, my anthropomorphism of inanimate objects.”
In this instance, I believe Patchett’s self-assessment is not so strange and that thinking of objects as possessing human traits is linked to a greater tendency to acquire and save things. People who have emotional attachments of this type might feel responsible for their possessions, particularly when given by a loved one, where they see them as objects that have been entrusted to them as caretakers.
The strong attachments, we form with things are often endowed with qualities that are rooted in our imagination of what we want them to be and not necessarily what they are. We create stories both real and imagined about those objects and their relationship to us and to other people and places. All of these things combine to create a powerful narrative where we find it difficult to write the final chapter. It’s the process of writing this epilogue to complete the narrative, and the myriad of stories we create for our possessions that makes letting go so painful.
Tools for transitioning into Adulthood.
Children often get attached to objects. It’s not uncommon for some children to have a favorite toy, a blanket, or stuffed animal. For these kids, those objects represent much more than the material from which they are made, but something that signals safety and reminds them of the person who gave it to them. As we age however according to Dr. Kiara Timpano an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Miami, the immediate need for those objects often declines, but that doesn’t mean that the attachment to them declines. “When a kid grows up, he might not need his teddy bear to calm him during a thunderstorm, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still important to him. It may be important because of the history and memories it represents, and because it’s been in his life for so long that it serves as an extension of himself.”
Patchett in describing her experience in detaching from a house filled with memorable objects writes- “I had miscalculated the tools of adulthood when I was young or had I miscalculated the kind of adult I would be.” This seemingly innocent reflection on her part creates a paradox that many of us face as we age. We often become someone different than who we imagined ourselves to be when we were young.
I agree with Patchett’s observation but question whether we truly “miscalculate” the tools of adulthood. I think what more accurately occurs is that objects that tend to be associated with a particular phase of life are carried with us past the point where they serve the practical needs associated with that particular developmental phase as was noted by Timpano.
Though attachment to objects seems universally human, people vary widely in what they get attached to and why. Researchers Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Ph.D., and Eugene Halton, Ph.D. in their book— “The Meaning of Things: Domestic symbols and the self” said that there are differences of age and gender regarding the things we get attached to. During his interviews, from the 1970s, he noted that men were more likely to pick objects related to hobbies, while women often chose family heirlooms. And, older people tended to point out photos, while teenagers more frequently chose electronics. In the Forty years since that research was published, I believe little has changed. With these general categories, it’s easy to see how one can move throughout their life toward objects with ever-increasing attachments- from a distant observer to a casual interest to a hobby and finally a die-hard devotee.
The practice of letting go is a challenging one. And, it’s a task that most of us will confront at some point in adulthood. The challenge is that we must examine our relationship with our material things. Things that we associate with our identity and help to define who and what we are known for.
How to Practice: Patchett concludes is about “starting to get rid of my possessions, at least the useless ones, because possessions stood between me and death. They didn’t protect me from death, but they created a barrier in my understanding, like layers of bubble wrap, so that instead of thinking about what was coming and the beauty that was here now I was thinking about the piles of shiny trinkets I’d accumulated. I had begun the journey of digging out.” In this context, Patchett uses the term "practice" as a metaphor for spiritual discipline and preparation. And, as a reminder that each of us must practice and prepare for that time when it comes.
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References:
Beck, J. 2014, December 10). For The Love of Stuff https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/12/for-the-love-of-stuff/383592/
Patchett, A. (2021, July 22). How To Practice https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/08/how-to-practice