Decluttering The Empty Nest

De-cluttering the Empty Nest

June Considine

My friends warned me about the empty nest syndrome. Fledglings gone and parents left along in the silent, empty branches. So when my children said, “Mother, Father, it’s time to fly,” we braced ourselves for the inevitable separation. Little did we realise there is no such thing as an empty nest. The fledglings may scatter to the outer reaches of the forest but they leave their debris behind.

In our case that consisted of three crates of comics (that had, according to our eldest fledgling, the potential to become collectors’ items), along with his collection of rare second-hand vinyls, a guitar with broken strings, and his snooker table. My eldest female fledgling left behind three full book cases, a cabinet of CD’s, a large black dog named Smudge, another guitar with broken strings, five pairs of Doc Martens and a set of juggling balls.

The youngest fledgling, having spent four years at art college, left sculptures and canvases, a headshop of chemicals, a large and alarming glass orb representing the human brain, and a suitcase of dairies, locked and tied with many yards of string. They all left wardrobes of clothes that, they insisted, would be reclaimed as retro fashion in later years.

Over the years, our resolve to deal with this debris weakened. Apart from the dog, the rest of their belongings were inanimate, easy to ignore. We began to dump our own junk, broken computers and printers, golf clubs, musical instruments, Christmas decorations, electrical goods that my husband was determined, one day, to repair, and crates of family videos which, when shown to our fledglings, were greeted with the command, “Fast forward, please.”

Occasionally, I uttered dire warnings about impending clear-outs

but they ignored such threats. They knew we were too busy chasing our own deadlines to tackle the weight of their history. There was always tomorrow...tomorrow... and tomorrow would have remained a vague aspiration except for the impending visit of four Scottish friends. Suddenly, the word “de-clutter” became our mantra. We looked at our attic, a vast area of unused space, usually entered by my husband balancing precariously on the edge of the banisters and hoisting himself upwards. After the installation of a Stira folding stairs we sent an urgent S.O.S to the fledglings. Return and decide what you want to salvage or suffer the consequences. Realising we finally meant business, they trooped home to confront their past. This proved to be rather a long-drawn out process as they kept running into each other’s rooms waving objects and shouting, “Do you remember the time....”

However, eventually, they separated the chaff from the wheat. What was considered fit for posterity was placed in lidded crates or large jumbo sacks and heaved upwards. My daughter’s art pieces, including plaster-of-Paris casts of her friends’ upper bodies, were wrapped reverently in sheets of plastic and laid to rest under the eaves.

We are a family of readers and look upon the defacing of books as acts of vandalism. As the date of our visitors arrived loomed ever nearer, we began to task of separation. Pulp went into the green bin, worthy books that we would never read again went to Oxfam, and our favourites were returned to the shelves. As one person’s junk is another person’s treasure, Oxfam also served us well by accepting our discarded bric-a-brac. The broken computers and all electrical goods went to our local recycling plant, jumbo sacks of clothes were left in readiness for door-to-door collections and we disposed of unwanted furniture through a recycling internet site.

While all this heaving and huffing was going on, I decided to ‘touch-up, the skirting board in the kitchen. But I’d forgotten that a paintbrush is a colonising force that refuses to recognise borders. It invades virgin territory, halls and landings, spare bedrooms, the darkest cubby holes whose existence I’d forgotten. I bought paint samples and slashed them on the walls. I became obsessed with the subtlety of shading. I demanded my husband’s opinion.

“It’s cream,” he said. “They’re all cream.”

Astonished that he could not distinguish between Soft Linen, Antique Cream or Matted Rye, I sent him back to the attic and rang a professional painter.

Eventually, we stood back and took stock of our clean walls, clear shelves, empty spaces and groaning attic. We hung the last picture, smoothed the duvets, flicked a duster across the furniture and collapsed over a bottle of wine on the same instant, I suspect, as Eyjafjallajkull exploded.

Well, you all know the rest. Our house was totally devoid of dust and debris –but the same could not be said for the path flight between Ireland and Scotland. As we sat alone in our minimalist surroundings, our fridge loaded with enough food to feed an advancing army, frantic texts were exchanged between ourselves and our visitors. The air flight was consumed in dust, the ferries overrun. But still we hoped until the final text, received, hours before their anticipated arrival, read, “So sorry! Can’t even manage foot passage on the ferries. Hope you didn’t go to any trouble on our behalf.”

“Of course not,” I texted back. “It was just a case of changing the sheets.”

Published in the Daily Mail This Life Page on 29 May 2010.