Madam Blueberry

For much of our twenties and thirties, Julie and I spent a lot of time accumulating stuff. Early on in our marriage, we used to lie in bed and flip through catalogues point out end tables and patio furniture and rugs. Part of it was that it took a long time for the novelty of regular, adult-sized paychecks to wear off. Part of it was that we were going through a protracted nesting period where we were trying to set up a household. It also helped that we had no kids for the first six years of our marriage.

But somewhere along the line, somebody must have flipped a switch. Somewhere around the time we moved into our late thirties, the glitter of all that stuff started to fade. Shortly before we moved to Hong Kong, I came across a receipt for a piece of furniture Julie and I bought fifteen years ago. I had retro-active sticker-shock. I'm sure that back then it made complete sense to a couple with double incomes and no kids to spend that kind of money on a chunk of furniture, but we would never do that today. We would go to Ikea and buy the cheapest item they had.

So I took perverse pleasure in the idea that for two years we would be living with whatever we could fit into our sixteen suitcases. It was kind of a fun exercise to pare two decades of accumulated stuff -an entire household’s worth- down to a few suitcases and put the rest in storage. It forced us to ask ourselves “What do we really need to function?” It was rather liberating; we were freed from the tyranny of junk.

The process had the excitement that you had when you were a kid and you went camping. “We’re going to get by with just these few items? No way! Cool.” After we unpacked all of our possessions in August, our apartment had a certain spartan beauty to it. We had shelves with just one item on them. We had a kitchen drawer that housed just one utensil.

But, alas, I am sorry to announce that the march of progress seems to be inevitable. The accumulation of stuff has resumed. Granted, when we first got here, it was all understandable. We needed some pots and pans and a toilet brush and a rug for the kitchen. But then Julie bought a fleece pullover that was on sale, and we got the girls badminton rackets for Christmas, and we bought a piece of artwork to hang on our bare walls. . . and so it continues.

The fantasy of living like a modern-day, upscale Robinson Crusoe has died. Right back where we started.

The only difference now is that I have ever-expanding collections of junk on two continents instead of just one.

-Jack