A Lamp Named Sadie

For the past four weeks, my daughter and I have been using the KonMari Method to clear the entire house. With over 50 hours in, we’ve made great strides. There’s something therapeutic about clearing one’s physical space, I am finding I have more than just material items in my life to clear away. There are emotions, beliefs, and well-worn and outdated habits to look at honestly and access. 

Standing on one foot, the KonMari Method has two main aspects that sets it apart from other ways of clearing. Questioning each and every item, is it necessary, does it bring me joy? Sorting by categories instead of areas, for instance clothes. Every article of clothing is gathered and taken to one location to be looked at, sorted, and accessed. When every item in one category is strewn out before us, we get a true picture of what is going on in our physical world. Do we need that many of one thing? Is it worn out? Do we even use this? Get rid of the excess and unwanted. Put away what is left, respectfully, in its proper place. Steadily, we go through one category after the other, repeating the process. 

In preparation, a few weeks ago, we first went through each of the rooms and inventoried every category we found in them. Where it was obvious, we removed anything that could be easily purged or donated or was misplaced. Each room should have taken about 15 minutes, maybe 30 if we were moving things out. We started in my bedroom and it took us over an hour and a half in that room alone. It took that long to not move objects , but instead emotions. 

The entire outside wall is lined up with antique furnishings. Alone they would be lovely. There’s the ladder back wooden rocker that sat on a front porch in Gettysburg that watched the soldiers prepare for battle. The low drop-side end table has the brass and marble lamp on it. There’s a leaded slag glass lamp atop the old chest of drawers. Completing the picture is the well preserved, notions and accessory loaded, and fully functioning Singer treadle sewing machine. Described like that, it’s a lovely picture, and has seen days like that. 

Nowadays, there are clothes thrown on the rocker, the slag glass lamp shade is in a large plastic bin on the floor. It’s packed safely away until it can be restored at the fasteners. There are papers and photos stacked next to that; items from a lost loved one that I’m not sure what to do with them. Smaller bins hold an assortment of toiletries that need a proper home. I see the  folded sheets that need to be put away sitting on the sewing machine, and donatable clothing on the floor underneath it.  Surrounding the brass lamp on the low table is a collection of chimney sweep figurines that look oddly out of place and an outfit of clothing waiting its turn to be laundered. The lamp stands in front of  wall hangings that have to do with children and seem out of context. I can’t help questioning now  if I’ve built a buffer to separate myself  from being in contact with these antiques. 

Before we lived in New Jersey, we lived in Tampa, Florida. Tampa was my husband’s family home and I had lived there enough years to consider it my second home. We had given Jerusalem a try before that, but opted to return to Tampa. Those following three years in a lovely home and cozy community are what I call our Golden Era. 

We had fallen into a honey of a deal on a bank foreclosure. The elderly couple that had loved the place and added upgrades like stained glass windows, transoms, leaded glass doors, and a park like landscaping, had died and the nephew wanted out from under it. Our rented apartment in Jerusalem had been furnished so we were starting from scratch as we decorated and furnished every room of the house.

My husband enjoyed shopping immensely. Back then, I was tired from being in chronic pain and couldn’t enjoy it. I came along for the big one or two shopping events at the finer department store that gave us a big discount on the major big pieces. I seldom joined him for the spontaneous and oft taken little trips downtown for antiquing. There was an abundance of antique shops and malls. The antiques we could afford were the mass produced pieces dating back to the 1920s, ‘30s, and ‘40s. We were both romantics who enjoyed the musicals and movies from that time. Our home soon looked like the sets from those movies. He had quite the eye for decorating, and everything seemed perfectly placed, and we loved the results. We were active members in our local Jewish community and enjoyed opening up our home to others. Friends and family came by often. The house was a pretty property and I felt it could hold its own. It was welcoming to all. Those from lesser means instantly felt comfortable by the hominess felt by the familiar-feeling antique decor. Those from greater means also felt at home by the house’s lavish design. 

Whether I had personally shopped for it or not, every single item was jointly placed by us. We were so excited to play house together for the first time. We had only been together a few years. At first we had combined our furnishings into two apartments, one for my teenage son. Later, we had put a few choice pieces in storage when we moved to Israel. We were like newlyweds. In fact, I often told him our lives perennially felt like we were newly established or visiting abroad. He had a way about him that made me feel like we were always taking flight to a new and joyfully anticipated new adventure. He had swept me off my feet.

All those chosen pieces came to New Jersey with us to a house with more rooms but less space. The large ones  squeezed into the smaller rooms or spilled over into others, with still empty spaces here and there that needed even more new pieces. It wasn’t as fun decorating, it was utilitarian and compromising. 

A baby when we moved, our daughter only knew her large home here in New Jersey with the packed-in furnishings.  She also knows the heartache of losing most of it a few years ago when she and I rushed to downsize to where we live now. Here we are, the two of us at our best ever and with all the desire and strength to finish the job once and for all.  We are ready to clear away the unneeded and unwanted and give space to our lives and dreams.

We stand in my room taking inventory and the pieces haunt me and make me weep. She says, “Get rid of them, they are toxic. Furniture shouldn’t make you cry. Are they bringing you joy?”

Well. I like the chair. We bought it when I was pregnant and we were driving through Pennsylvania. It was necessary, I mean who has a baby without a rocker? Although, most of her infancy was spent being held by me in the amazingly comfortable  leather chaise, now long gone. The sewing machine was my purchase. I had a fantasy to make a dress from a vintage pattern that dated from the same era as the machine. But, the last time I made anything on a sewing machine was years ago when I made a prom dress for my older daughter. It had given me so much grief to labor over the intricate design I swore I would never sew anything again. That oath has been upheld. 

It’s the two lamps that hurt my feelings. They were both originally in his office. The shorter slag glass lamp had sat proudly on his desk and fit in beautifully with his decor. That brass and marble lamp made us both laugh. I named her. I named her Sadie. Sadie the painted lady. Like the objects in the Disney’s Beauty and the Beast animated movie, I imagined her into animation. In my mind’s eye she is like a movie character a younger Joan Blondell would have played. A good-hearted madam and barkeep. She stands proud and pretty, the orangey colored panes seem a bit off hue. The crystal ornaments hanging from the original holes are obviously fake and forced, but she wears them insistently. She had sat on a different table next to his chair where he listened to patients. Now she’s on the little table that too could animate into a flop-eared playful pup. I had jokingly mocked him and his purchase. He had laughed it off and said he liked Joan Blondell. 

Photo credit: Rachel Stein

Photo credit: Rachel Stein

Now the lamp reminds me of my sadness of the never truly realized dreams and intentions. We may have had several flights, but we seem to have always force landed before reaching our destination. That tears at me. I wanted the story we wrote in Tampa to be the first act that only got better. My daughter and I sat on the foot of my bed. I lamented and wept. She sat lovingly next to me. I cried it out. It helped. Better out than in, I always say. 

I wiped my eyes, took a breath, and we easily finished the inventory of the entire house that day. Sometimes, we simply need a good cry. 

(To Be Continued)

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