In ten to thirty years your parents, their siblings and friends will die and then you'll be sorting through their things as well. I've just been through that. More questions about stuff. More quandaries, memories.
I was homeless once for a couple of months when I was a bit older than you are now. I lost all the stuff I'd accumulated up to then. I had some photographs, letters, journals, manuscripts, some books I was able to store in other people's basements.
You will always have your breath and that feeling of being until of course you don't. The breath is the important thing to have, the best thing, the most beautiful.
I was very ill once. During that thankfully brief period of time I distinctly remember my first thought upon waking was “still breathing….whew”. Thanks for the reminder. It’s a good level set.
Oddly prescient. I read this at the end of a long day flogging most of my furniture and relinquishing myself of possessions that I have also lugged around for the past 25 years or so. A romantic break up has left me untethered and in the midst of dealing with that, I felt the need to rid myself of anything and everything that has bound me to the person I was before. So many iterations of the same person, wrapped up in records and photos and books. I thought, like you, that without them I’d be lost. Letting go of them feels like the most important thing I’ve done.
I wonder also how many of us, dealing with the turmoil of the world, will shed more and more as we come back to what is important.
I’m in my 70’s and not only possess many things that I have accumulated over the decades, but also things accumulated from my parents and grandparents.
I look at each item and ponder, “Will this thing be a benefit or a burden to my children after I croak.
If I'm honest, 90% of it would end up on a card table in the driveway with an Estate Sale sign out front.
As a person compulsively drawn to flea markets, I’m always astonished and bemused at how much STUFF there is in the world, how much of it often feels covetable. I buy LPs at flea markets as well as costume jewelry and the occasional framed picture or item of clothing. When I think of how much stuff is spread before me on one random Saturday at the Chelsea Flea in Manhattan, and realize that every place has at least one such emporium either indoors or outdoors, I’m floored.
I just turned 64, and having lost my parents a few yrs ago am aware of how much stuff THEY left, tho they were far from being hoarders, and scold myself for still acquiring so many books & records. But they make me happy. And I’m VERY fortunate to live in one of the few limited equity coop complexes in NYC so my days of moving apartments are over. Still, I cull the books periodically, of which I have 2200 or so. I’ll be doing that with records too, but I’ve bought them all since ’21, so not so much yet.
And somehow after I go they’ll be dispersed back into the 2nd hand goods marketplace.
When we moved as a family from a 4 bedroom detached house in Plymouth to a 2 bedroom flat in London we had to get rid of so much, almost everything it seemed. We felt lighter with a sense of freedom when we did it, it was wonderful although we did miss our kayaks.
I am doing this - downsizing, getting rid of other peoples stuff I have been left with, all those things of mine I was just holding in the false belief they identified me. The Swedish call it death clearing (in my case, not yours you are too young) at times it feels horribly like I have already died and everything that was me is going to a charity shop where pre-loved vintage items are valued more than pre-loved vintage women. At other times it feels really freeing - as if once done I shall be able to run away to sea or the circus and live another life completely. But reading this has reassured me I am not alone in finding it a source of reflection. Thank you.
Think of the joy and delight you are passing along to the next generation of vinyl-browsers and collectors when they happen upon one of your Vinyl Children out in the world of used records shops.
This is what I tell myself when I decide to let a book or a gorgeous piece of fabric or a vintage sewing machine go: now someone else gets to enjoy it, too.
I copied the exact same quote from your post as Peter Wood did to explain why, at 72, after 60 yrs of collecting books and records, and 32 yrs of living here in the same townhouse with shelving and cabinets on all 3 levels stacked with my collections, I still find it excruciating to cull! These shelves and cabinets are the unwritten chronicle of me, as I meandered and maundered through the past 7 decades! In each case,
“there’s always a record you’re quietly and surprisingly going off, behind your own back, or some previously off-putting album whose merits have, out of nowhere, finally clicked for you. This will keep happening, forever, undoubtedly, and your inner curator’s best attempts to keep up will be futile.”
I love your writing Tom and have collected ALL YOUR BOOKS but I have managed to also give several away to friends and family. But then I replaced them. I live in the Museum of Me. My taste in music continues to evolve. I’m putting off moving anywhere for as long as I remain fit enough to climb my stairs.
Sarah, you mirror my experience and feelings exactly (including the stairs!). It's my life and my history. Yes, most of it might end up in a skip, or hopefully a charity shop where it will bring joy to someone new but I like to live in this Museum of Me.
Thank you for articulating how I feel about my flat (ground floor so I don’t need to worry about not managing stairs!) and its contents. I’ve been here 24 years and it has always just been me living here so it is definitely a Museum of Me. I am very lucky to have the security of my own home and appreciate it every day. I do occasionally think about what will happen to all the stuff when I go, especially as my mum (89, had a stroke and still living in a house with stairs she goes up and down umpteen times a day!) is trying to get rid of stuff so my brother and I have less to contend with. Am I defined by my stuff? I hope not, but being surrounded by it makes me happy.
This one hits home. At one point I had my own record store ...when I sold the store I still had the records. After a lot of moves I did the same as you. It was/is brutal. I'm slowly building up my collection again, which helps ease the pain a bit.
I think record collections morph like book and art collections do. Sometimes we buy because we are just floored, delighted and awed by a story, by an album, by a piece of pottery or a painting or photo. Sometimes we just want to bathe in nostalgia of a “better time,” so we buy things that remind us of that. Sometimes our heads are in different spaces- depressed for longer than we’d like, creative and active, in love with someone or we partook of certain substances which may have opened us up to new experiences in music, lit and art. There’s a core group that stays often, books we cannot part with because of not just value, but what they gave us. Albums that we can’t leave behind no matter what like a significant other or family member.
I think culling is important for obvious reasons- storage, does it actually bring me joy (or sadness, anger, etc), making room for the new experiences, etc. I find myself listening to more old school country, bluegrass now than ever, versus having a monster collection of goth and dark wave. There are albums I will never sell unless I absolutely have to, but many I enjoyed and sold for other discoverers of goth/dark wave. Now I’m the one diving, swapping and sweating for certain Willie Nelson, Eddie Rabbitt and Glen Campbell records.
I love this. I have been in the music industry my entire adult life, and I have a collectors mentality, for books and records. I have been working on curbing that impulse, and the lightening of the load is very much on my mind. I will be leaving my records to my son, and I want to have it be a representation of myself, not a clutter of impulse buying, idiotic personal choices, and unthinking accumulation.
I truly enjoyed reading about your journey, and can relate to it on so many levels.
I’m 46, and currently working through some of the same thoughts. I’ve been collecting music on CD and vinyl for most of my life, and amassed hundreds of LPs and approximately 4,000 CDs. I’ve been very protective of my collection and have kept it intact and growing through numerous moves and relationships. Tied in with that has been my obsession with hi-fi, and I have box swapped at an alarming and unaffordable rate, in search of nirvana. Rather than a midlife crisis, I’m having a period of midlife reflection, and at the centre of that is a brave review of these obsessions. I’m facing up to the fact I have constantly ignored, that hi-fi nirvana doesn’t exist. I now have a very good but relatively affordable system that draws me into the music, and that’s the whole point, not the business of tweaking small details to achieve a 1% improvement. As for the music, I have realised that some things I have purchased out of blind loyalty to particular musicians, my completist streak and some level of FOMO. Sorting through my CDs in particular, I have come across albums I have played only once or twice, and even some still trapped in shrink wrap! What impact would no longer owning those things have on my life? There’s only one honest answer to that question. There are albums and recordings I will never part with, that are the soundtrack of my life, but plenty which I can be happy streaming in lossless quality on the couple of occasions I might want to listen to. My mind and our home need space freeing up, and the steps I need to take are clear.
I really enjoyed this piece as I'm in a similar spot collecting, but across the world in Portland, Oregon, and with approx. 4000 LPs. I often get overwhelmed when I look at my shelves. For 38 years, I collected mainly psych rock and thought I had to own every psych record I found. I recently purged about 250-300 albums. I pulled out rock albums from my youth that I hadn't listened to for years and would never listen to again (do I really need those Montrose records? Gone). I then hit my psych collection and was fairly ruthless and pulled out stuff I never liked or knew I wouldn't listen to again. Amongst it all were some choice titles, but nothing A-grade (I said goodbye to my Rainy Daze LP!). I kept the golden nuggets. It felt scary at first, but also liberating, and I haven't regretted the titles I released. It was time to let them be discovered and enjoyed by someone else.
I am now feeling another purge is due because all the money I made from the first cull, I used to buy more records that were on my want list. Ideally, if I could, I would like to trim it down to no more than 1000 albums. But maybe I should trim it to 500? Can I even do that?
PS: I have an OG German and Canadian 'SF Sorrow' (two different covers) that I bought for, like, $20. The holy grail would be a mono British copy. But these days, one would need to take out a second mortgage for something like that!
We have just been clearing my Mum in law's house. It's been hard because she was an artist, so we didn't just want to get the house clearers in; her own work, and pieces she had bought, we felt really needed new homes rather than a trip to Oxfam/similar. And so many photographs! (every drawer held a few more packages). Some stuff *is* just 'stuff' but so much of it isn't, dealing with it always seems bound up with change of some kind, and often difficult change at that.
The story of my possessions - through the lens of an ex-aspirational, possession-oriented, capitalist - and collector of many useless things.
Having children, I think, changes your world view. You want the best for them - and, mistakenly, believe that stuff, (and money), are important. That's the only explanation I can come up with, for why I went from someone who didn't give a shit about possessions, to someone who signed on to the bullshit aspirational treadmill. Whatever the reason, I was all in.
Losing a child, does more than change your world view. It completely upends it. Two years after losing my son, I found myself walking out of my marriage, and away from my possessions - including hundreds of albums and books. When I eventually found somewhere to live, I collected a few albums and books, together with my guitars - and most importantly, some of my son's clothes. I am sitting here, writing this in my son's, faded, threadbare hoodie. It is without doubt, one of my most valued possessions.
I have no regrets about abandoning my possessions; some regrets about the hurt I caused; and no desire to acquire more stuff. In many respects I have come full circle and barely recognise the person that inhabited that middle thirty years of my life. Possessions are a weight; a drag; an anchor. Freedom from possessions is... well... freedom.
I'm now 60, and over my adult life in the US I've moved within cities many times, across country twice. My collection of vinyl and CDs wasn't huge in all but the last couple of moves, but was big enough to give me pause.
But since 2022 I've moved from the US to France, and then France to Denmark. The non-negotiable for me to move was the music, over 1000 CDs and 1100 vinyl. Thankfully I have an understanding wife. Though when we moved to Europe we were brutal about offloading books.
I buy far less music than I used to, but I am thinking now about why I've kept so much of what I did. And I am starting to think of what it would look like to offload a lot of it. If I go before my wife, do I want her to have to deal with it? No.
There are things I haven't listened to in years, but to (sort of) solve that problem I wrote a quick data script to randomize a listening choice.
Ah Tom, imagine if you had never moved and then suddenly through age and/or infirmity you had to move from your home of 50 years. Imagine how much stuff you would have accumulated. Stuff that you’d forgotten about; stuff that propelled you back through time. That will be me in a few years time. Anyone got a skip?
I just moved not quite a week ago, my 11th time in 16 years (not my choices either) and I’ve been wrestling with “things” and what they mean to my identity and the hauling of them around all these years. I still have too much stuff. But sadly I no longer have records and my books are in a storage unit because my space is tiny. But my walls are covered in artwork and that is comforting.
In ten to thirty years your parents, their siblings and friends will die and then you'll be sorting through their things as well. I've just been through that. More questions about stuff. More quandaries, memories.
I was homeless once for a couple of months when I was a bit older than you are now. I lost all the stuff I'd accumulated up to then. I had some photographs, letters, journals, manuscripts, some books I was able to store in other people's basements.
You will always have your breath and that feeling of being until of course you don't. The breath is the important thing to have, the best thing, the most beautiful.
I was very ill once. During that thankfully brief period of time I distinctly remember my first thought upon waking was “still breathing….whew”. Thanks for the reminder. It’s a good level set.
I love your comment. Thank you. 🙏
Oddly prescient. I read this at the end of a long day flogging most of my furniture and relinquishing myself of possessions that I have also lugged around for the past 25 years or so. A romantic break up has left me untethered and in the midst of dealing with that, I felt the need to rid myself of anything and everything that has bound me to the person I was before. So many iterations of the same person, wrapped up in records and photos and books. I thought, like you, that without them I’d be lost. Letting go of them feels like the most important thing I’ve done.
I wonder also how many of us, dealing with the turmoil of the world, will shed more and more as we come back to what is important.
I’m in my 70’s and not only possess many things that I have accumulated over the decades, but also things accumulated from my parents and grandparents.
I look at each item and ponder, “Will this thing be a benefit or a burden to my children after I croak.
If I'm honest, 90% of it would end up on a card table in the driveway with an Estate Sale sign out front.
As a person compulsively drawn to flea markets, I’m always astonished and bemused at how much STUFF there is in the world, how much of it often feels covetable. I buy LPs at flea markets as well as costume jewelry and the occasional framed picture or item of clothing. When I think of how much stuff is spread before me on one random Saturday at the Chelsea Flea in Manhattan, and realize that every place has at least one such emporium either indoors or outdoors, I’m floored.
I just turned 64, and having lost my parents a few yrs ago am aware of how much stuff THEY left, tho they were far from being hoarders, and scold myself for still acquiring so many books & records. But they make me happy. And I’m VERY fortunate to live in one of the few limited equity coop complexes in NYC so my days of moving apartments are over. Still, I cull the books periodically, of which I have 2200 or so. I’ll be doing that with records too, but I’ve bought them all since ’21, so not so much yet.
And somehow after I go they’ll be dispersed back into the 2nd hand goods marketplace.
Honestly? I only ask if I want its company on my journey. If I do, I keep it. House clearance companies can cope easily with the rest.
Respect, and best wishes for the road ahead.
When we moved as a family from a 4 bedroom detached house in Plymouth to a 2 bedroom flat in London we had to get rid of so much, almost everything it seemed. We felt lighter with a sense of freedom when we did it, it was wonderful although we did miss our kayaks.
I am doing this - downsizing, getting rid of other peoples stuff I have been left with, all those things of mine I was just holding in the false belief they identified me. The Swedish call it death clearing (in my case, not yours you are too young) at times it feels horribly like I have already died and everything that was me is going to a charity shop where pre-loved vintage items are valued more than pre-loved vintage women. At other times it feels really freeing - as if once done I shall be able to run away to sea or the circus and live another life completely. But reading this has reassured me I am not alone in finding it a source of reflection. Thank you.
Think of the joy and delight you are passing along to the next generation of vinyl-browsers and collectors when they happen upon one of your Vinyl Children out in the world of used records shops.
This is what I tell myself when I decide to let a book or a gorgeous piece of fabric or a vintage sewing machine go: now someone else gets to enjoy it, too.
I agree. It feels good to think about the pleasure my 600 vinyl albums are giving to others.
I copied the exact same quote from your post as Peter Wood did to explain why, at 72, after 60 yrs of collecting books and records, and 32 yrs of living here in the same townhouse with shelving and cabinets on all 3 levels stacked with my collections, I still find it excruciating to cull! These shelves and cabinets are the unwritten chronicle of me, as I meandered and maundered through the past 7 decades! In each case,
“there’s always a record you’re quietly and surprisingly going off, behind your own back, or some previously off-putting album whose merits have, out of nowhere, finally clicked for you. This will keep happening, forever, undoubtedly, and your inner curator’s best attempts to keep up will be futile.”
I love your writing Tom and have collected ALL YOUR BOOKS but I have managed to also give several away to friends and family. But then I replaced them. I live in the Museum of Me. My taste in music continues to evolve. I’m putting off moving anywhere for as long as I remain fit enough to climb my stairs.
A “museum of me” love that phrase.
Sarah, you mirror my experience and feelings exactly (including the stairs!). It's my life and my history. Yes, most of it might end up in a skip, or hopefully a charity shop where it will bring joy to someone new but I like to live in this Museum of Me.
Thank you for articulating how I feel about my flat (ground floor so I don’t need to worry about not managing stairs!) and its contents. I’ve been here 24 years and it has always just been me living here so it is definitely a Museum of Me. I am very lucky to have the security of my own home and appreciate it every day. I do occasionally think about what will happen to all the stuff when I go, especially as my mum (89, had a stroke and still living in a house with stairs she goes up and down umpteen times a day!) is trying to get rid of stuff so my brother and I have less to contend with. Am I defined by my stuff? I hope not, but being surrounded by it makes me happy.
This one hits home. At one point I had my own record store ...when I sold the store I still had the records. After a lot of moves I did the same as you. It was/is brutal. I'm slowly building up my collection again, which helps ease the pain a bit.
Finding them again is fun! I remember that after a big, regretful cull circa 2003.
Intrigued: When rebuilding did you buy much stuff you had before?
A little bit, but mostly new stuff.
I think record collections morph like book and art collections do. Sometimes we buy because we are just floored, delighted and awed by a story, by an album, by a piece of pottery or a painting or photo. Sometimes we just want to bathe in nostalgia of a “better time,” so we buy things that remind us of that. Sometimes our heads are in different spaces- depressed for longer than we’d like, creative and active, in love with someone or we partook of certain substances which may have opened us up to new experiences in music, lit and art. There’s a core group that stays often, books we cannot part with because of not just value, but what they gave us. Albums that we can’t leave behind no matter what like a significant other or family member.
I think culling is important for obvious reasons- storage, does it actually bring me joy (or sadness, anger, etc), making room for the new experiences, etc. I find myself listening to more old school country, bluegrass now than ever, versus having a monster collection of goth and dark wave. There are albums I will never sell unless I absolutely have to, but many I enjoyed and sold for other discoverers of goth/dark wave. Now I’m the one diving, swapping and sweating for certain Willie Nelson, Eddie Rabbitt and Glen Campbell records.
wow, something Positive and Beautiful on the Internet (the comments here )
I love this. I have been in the music industry my entire adult life, and I have a collectors mentality, for books and records. I have been working on curbing that impulse, and the lightening of the load is very much on my mind. I will be leaving my records to my son, and I want to have it be a representation of myself, not a clutter of impulse buying, idiotic personal choices, and unthinking accumulation.
I truly enjoyed reading about your journey, and can relate to it on so many levels.
I’m 46, and currently working through some of the same thoughts. I’ve been collecting music on CD and vinyl for most of my life, and amassed hundreds of LPs and approximately 4,000 CDs. I’ve been very protective of my collection and have kept it intact and growing through numerous moves and relationships. Tied in with that has been my obsession with hi-fi, and I have box swapped at an alarming and unaffordable rate, in search of nirvana. Rather than a midlife crisis, I’m having a period of midlife reflection, and at the centre of that is a brave review of these obsessions. I’m facing up to the fact I have constantly ignored, that hi-fi nirvana doesn’t exist. I now have a very good but relatively affordable system that draws me into the music, and that’s the whole point, not the business of tweaking small details to achieve a 1% improvement. As for the music, I have realised that some things I have purchased out of blind loyalty to particular musicians, my completist streak and some level of FOMO. Sorting through my CDs in particular, I have come across albums I have played only once or twice, and even some still trapped in shrink wrap! What impact would no longer owning those things have on my life? There’s only one honest answer to that question. There are albums and recordings I will never part with, that are the soundtrack of my life, but plenty which I can be happy streaming in lossless quality on the couple of occasions I might want to listen to. My mind and our home need space freeing up, and the steps I need to take are clear.
I really enjoyed this piece as I'm in a similar spot collecting, but across the world in Portland, Oregon, and with approx. 4000 LPs. I often get overwhelmed when I look at my shelves. For 38 years, I collected mainly psych rock and thought I had to own every psych record I found. I recently purged about 250-300 albums. I pulled out rock albums from my youth that I hadn't listened to for years and would never listen to again (do I really need those Montrose records? Gone). I then hit my psych collection and was fairly ruthless and pulled out stuff I never liked or knew I wouldn't listen to again. Amongst it all were some choice titles, but nothing A-grade (I said goodbye to my Rainy Daze LP!). I kept the golden nuggets. It felt scary at first, but also liberating, and I haven't regretted the titles I released. It was time to let them be discovered and enjoyed by someone else.
I am now feeling another purge is due because all the money I made from the first cull, I used to buy more records that were on my want list. Ideally, if I could, I would like to trim it down to no more than 1000 albums. But maybe I should trim it to 500? Can I even do that?
PS: I have an OG German and Canadian 'SF Sorrow' (two different covers) that I bought for, like, $20. The holy grail would be a mono British copy. But these days, one would need to take out a second mortgage for something like that!
We have just been clearing my Mum in law's house. It's been hard because she was an artist, so we didn't just want to get the house clearers in; her own work, and pieces she had bought, we felt really needed new homes rather than a trip to Oxfam/similar. And so many photographs! (every drawer held a few more packages). Some stuff *is* just 'stuff' but so much of it isn't, dealing with it always seems bound up with change of some kind, and often difficult change at that.
The story of my possessions - through the lens of an ex-aspirational, possession-oriented, capitalist - and collector of many useless things.
Having children, I think, changes your world view. You want the best for them - and, mistakenly, believe that stuff, (and money), are important. That's the only explanation I can come up with, for why I went from someone who didn't give a shit about possessions, to someone who signed on to the bullshit aspirational treadmill. Whatever the reason, I was all in.
Losing a child, does more than change your world view. It completely upends it. Two years after losing my son, I found myself walking out of my marriage, and away from my possessions - including hundreds of albums and books. When I eventually found somewhere to live, I collected a few albums and books, together with my guitars - and most importantly, some of my son's clothes. I am sitting here, writing this in my son's, faded, threadbare hoodie. It is without doubt, one of my most valued possessions.
I have no regrets about abandoning my possessions; some regrets about the hurt I caused; and no desire to acquire more stuff. In many respects I have come full circle and barely recognise the person that inhabited that middle thirty years of my life. Possessions are a weight; a drag; an anchor. Freedom from possessions is... well... freedom.
I'm now 60, and over my adult life in the US I've moved within cities many times, across country twice. My collection of vinyl and CDs wasn't huge in all but the last couple of moves, but was big enough to give me pause.
But since 2022 I've moved from the US to France, and then France to Denmark. The non-negotiable for me to move was the music, over 1000 CDs and 1100 vinyl. Thankfully I have an understanding wife. Though when we moved to Europe we were brutal about offloading books.
I buy far less music than I used to, but I am thinking now about why I've kept so much of what I did. And I am starting to think of what it would look like to offload a lot of it. If I go before my wife, do I want her to have to deal with it? No.
There are things I haven't listened to in years, but to (sort of) solve that problem I wrote a quick data script to randomize a listening choice.
Ah Tom, imagine if you had never moved and then suddenly through age and/or infirmity you had to move from your home of 50 years. Imagine how much stuff you would have accumulated. Stuff that you’d forgotten about; stuff that propelled you back through time. That will be me in a few years time. Anyone got a skip?
I just moved not quite a week ago, my 11th time in 16 years (not my choices either) and I’ve been wrestling with “things” and what they mean to my identity and the hauling of them around all these years. I still have too much stuff. But sadly I no longer have records and my books are in a storage unit because my space is tiny. But my walls are covered in artwork and that is comforting.