Danshari — that composite Japanese word meaning three things (all verbs): refuse, dispose, separate. It's written like this.
It is by itself more or less a minimalist manifesto for walking towards simplicity, living lightly.
It came to mind again this week, because our borough council has done a marvellous thing, and hooked up with a company that collects stuff we need to throw out, taking it away to sell on through charity shops, for good causes. They take — bagged up separately — books, clothing and bric-à-brac. We can book a collection online, pack up the items for disposal, and put them out labelled so they know to take it. The collection will be between 8am and 5pm, but the evening before they will email a 2-hr time slot. Then we can put it outside for them, or they will knock on the door to collect — very helpful for rainy days!
My general experience of life is that Stuff finds me. I have bright ideas for kitchen gadgets, or someone gives me a lovely present, or there's a book I want to read, and before long an accumulation of bits and pieces has gathered round without my ever having really intended it.
But since I don't particularly enjoy housework, and have no wish to spent my time organising and dusting and curating my accumulation, from time to time I have to run it through a danshari process: saying no to even objects I regard with affection, separating out what is daily useful from what is just here because I brought it home, and disposing of enough items until our house can breathe again, simple to clean and calm to look at.
The doorstep collection people are coming on Wednesday, so I have been going through my belongings, imposing a radical cull. They can't take furniture, so some larger items have found their way into the world by other means. A huge plastic box with a lid, and a big laundry basket, have gone to a neighbour packing up her worldly goods to move house. Two folding tables have gone to two people from the Facebook Hastings Give-and-Takery, and a slow cooker and a drinks dispenser went by the same route. Yesterday morning early a woman came to collect a strong and sturdy footstool which she wanted for a step allowing her eighty-nine-year-old mother to climb in and out of their camper van because she's taking her on holiday. Someone came for the low Chinese-looking unit we rescued from the roadside. Bit by bit things have gone on their way.
It's involved a lot of thought and photographing and posting online and waiting at home for people to come by and collect, but it's very much worth it. In this world of mass production, moving things on and sharing them out is essential, otherwise we'll all drown in clutter.
The element of danshari I am not very good at is the refusing part. I'm well practiced at separating and disposing, but I think I need to exercise my refusing muscle a bit. And I am fairly certain we still have more belongings in our house than we really should. In fact I can think of several right now — but the snag is they are things that have emotional significance (though not for me), so I must be cautious and tactful and slow about detaching them. Their time will come, though.
We love our little house, but in another year or two we will probably need to move to somewhere where the house and garden are on one level, no flights of steps inside or out, and where the garden is a lot smaller than the one we have here. We are very happy here for now, but we know that we will need to move one more time to accommodate health issues and growing old. With this in mind, I am determined to reduce our store of belongings to the smallest and simplest I can get it, so as to maximise our freedom and flexibility as we travel the road ahead.
