This week I finally read Marie Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing.
I devoured it in just two days, over two sittings, both in a hot bath, where I’ve been taking refuge because our apartment is unusually cold right now.1
While reading, my watch2 kept going off, alerting me to a higher than usual resting heart rate. I couldn’t tell if it was because of the hot water, or because my body was registering my sheer panic at the thought of discarding so many things.
Let’s be clear. I am obsessed, entranced, seduced by Marie Kondo’s philosophy, which is, in brief, that everything in your home should spark joy. That sounds so much cheesier than I really find her method to be, but it’s accurate, so there you are. I highly recommend the book, which I will be not be recapping in full, because her perspective is quite stimulating.3
If you were living under a rock when the book first made waves (in the English-speaking world) in 20154, or when the Netflix show came out in 2019, her method involves systematically touching everything you own, starting with your clothing and ending with sentimental items, like photographs. (Yes, every one, she says.) She says this process will take about six months and, once done, you’ll never have to do it again.
My reason for revisiting Marie Kondo’s method now is that we will need to move later this year. Our landlords are either going to renovate our apartment to rent it at market rate (lolsob), or move in themselves and rent out the top three floors instead, or, given that a real estate agent is coming by this weekend, maybe even sell the whole building.5 If there was ever a time to downsize in six months, now is the time to start.
Of course, you’re supposed to discard the items that do not spark joy. While in theory, many of these items could be reused by others, Kondo mostly quantifies the volume of items discarded by numbers of trash bags. She writes that the average number of 45-liter trash bags discarded by a single person who completes her program is 20 - 30. For a family of three, it’s closer to 70 bags. When Kondo wrote the book (which was published in Japan in 2011), she estimated that her clients had collectively disposed of 28,000 bags. Over a decade later, with an unofficial clientele of hundreds of thousands…well, I shudder6 to think of all of the trash sent to the landfill by her acolytes. And it is trash, if that’s where it goes, even if it was previously a perfectly good, functional, usable item.
The responsibility I feel for the objects that I have taken in is profound.
I mean, there was a mountain of discarded clothing in Chile’s Atacama Desert weighing between 11,000 to 59,000 tons! (The Brooklyn Bridge, for comparison, weighs 14,680 tons.) I say was because in 2022 it went up in flames. Most of that waste had been imported from elsewhere, probably here.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I don’t have the strength to marshal all the evidence that textile waste and other trash is a very serious, global problem. Chances are, if I understand the kind of person who subscribes to this newsletter, you already know. I don’t need to tell you.
Donating items that are still in good usable or working condition is almost certainly better than sending something straight to the landfill, but only 10 - 30 percent of donated items7 are resold in the store, and the rest are packaged in bulk to make their way around the world, taking sometimes very, very long journeys only to end up in a trash heap, maybe a very large one, somewhere else, probably in the Global South. It’s horrifying!
So when I think of the tangles of clothing that Marie Kondo has uncovered in countless closets and drawers—which she compares to a mess of noodles—and her concern for the mistreatment of objects that aren’t serving a purpose anymore…well, I get it. That is a kind of waste. But I can’t help but also think of the havoc and devastation that these items, once sent away from our homes, wreak on people and places around the globe.
Marie Kondo believes our homes should be treated as sacred spaces. I want that for myself, and others, too. But dare I also point out that the Earth is a sacred space, too? What respect does she deserve? And if you don’t want to personify the Earth or attribute spiritual or sacred qualities to her/it…what do we owe the places we share with each other (global humanity) and with other animals? Aghhh.
Anyway! I don’t know how to end this. I will be tidying and discarding up until our move. I will try to do so in a way that makes me feel…okay.8 I think that’s the only thing to do.
Here’s what I’ve been reading lately.
Was the Ohio Oil and Gas Land Management Commission in the right to approve oil and gas drilling under a state park and two wildlife areas? They were supposed to consider “environmental impacts, consequences for visitors or users of state lands, [and] public comments or objections” but, apparently, did not. Anyway, the Commission says tough luck, we approved these “land parcels for leasing of drilling rights” and there’s no right to appeal, but environmental groups say, wtf, yes, we absolutely can appeal, you didn’t do your job. [Kathiann Kowalski for Energy News Network]
Ginny Hogan successfully sold The Cut a story about how climate change will impact thru-hiking. I mean, I’m jealous I didn’t write it, but also impressed. Who would’ve seen The Cut9 publishing a story like that? Brava. [Ginny Hogan for The Cut]
Speaking of climate change, the weak ice conditions at Isle Royale National Park have made it too dangerous to land planes there, preventing scientists from studying the wolf and moose populations in the park. [Kurt Repanshek for National Parks Traveler]
It’s always been on the colder side in winter, but I’m not sure the heat is working at all right now. And we have a space heater but it only works in small areas.
Yes, I wore my watch into the bath, what of it? I take it off when I actual do the scrubbing and cleaning though because when I wasn’t doing that I kept getting contact dermatitis under the band, lol.
Quick note to say that I’m really not all about the “tidying will make you lose weight,” because yikes, but I do like her perspective on tags and packaging (they keep newly purchased items in the state of “product to be sold,” instead of a “possession” that belongs to you) and on stickers and other big textual items in the living space (they make it noisy) and on “stock” (it’s more expensive and likely wasteful, if the items expire, to store these items than to buy them as you need them).
Clarifying that I know the book came out in the United States in 2014, but most of the reviews seem to be, from a quick review of Google, from 2015 and later.
So if you know of any fabulous rent-stabilized apartments becoming available before the end of September, let me know!
Just checked my watch and my heart rate is at 100 bpm—not quite triggering an alert but high nonetheless.
I think this is specifically textiles, not sure about other items.
Trying to get rid of everything on Craigslist so I know it goes to someone who wants or needs it right now?
“The Cut is a New York Magazine site covering women’s lives and interests, from politics, feminism, work, money, relationships, mental health, style…” and that’s where the Google preview cuts off.
Out walking beside a beautiful reservoir, I used regularly to chat to a woman who lived locally. Once she mentioned her belief that when one acquires an animal one must recognise at that very moment that eventually one will be responsible for its death. Maybe we could apply that principle to things. In other words, however hard we try, our control over things we acquired in the past is limited, and even our best efforts can sometimes do more harm than good. (eg 2nd hand clothes donated to poorer countries have undermined local crafts.) So maybe the time to give this the most thought is BEFORE acquiring. Not just, do I really need this, but what will happen to it when I no longer do? Is it made of materials that can be re-cycled? Is it so desirable that someone else will want it (eg antiques)?
I wish I had realised earlier that I, and my needs, are transient. What can I do with so many pairs of lightly used running shoes, now I can no longer run? On the other hand, all those beautiful books I will struggle to read can be found good homes locally, being sold to a wonderful 2nd hand bookshop, or given to a great Oxfam bookshop, or the least presentable added to our brilliant free book exchange boxes. So buying books is the perfect guilt-free treat!
Jessica, I am loving reading your posts. Thank-you.
I might be overly sentimental and too attached to “things” but I buy very little (never from Amazon!!!!) and almost everything in my life has meaning. I don’t believe things are just things. So much of what I have was given to me by people I love or inherited from loved ones and is a connection to those people.
I find it incredibly painful to get rid of things but when I do I take photos of them first. Even if I never look at those photos, it’s comforting to know I can. When I sold my house to move to a small apartment the realtor said they would bring a dumpster over. I refused and carefully found new homes for almost everything.
I hope I didn’t burden somebody else with those things!