‘If I can’t go out, I shall have to bring things in’ – why I have rebelled against Marie Kondo and cluttered up the house

Do you remember Marie Kondo? You might have bought one of her books, all the rage a few years ago, about the life-changing impact of tidying up and getting rid of clutter – though strictly speaking, by now you should have chucked those out, too. That brief flirtation with minimalism – I think the Scandinavians also had something to do with it – always distressed me. An empty room is so brittle and humourless. After all, what is a life, if not the things we harvest along the way?

Well, lockdown has turned a mild uncertainty about decluttering into outright rebellion. If I can’t go out, I shall have to bring things in. So parcels arrive and the contents get stacked in ever more unlikely places. A pile of second hand books by the kettle. A pair of running shoes under the coffee table – I won’t be needing those, thank you very much. I like to think of it as an ambitious form of nesting. Since you never quite know during these long months of nothingness when and where you might need to sit down, you may as well have some company when you do.

The latest obsession is old magazines (and yes, no doubt you’ll see me, a prisoner in my own home, in a Channel 4 documentary soon enough). I found 42 dog-eared copies of the New Yorker magazine from 2019 on eBay last week and immediately decided I had to have the lot.

They are worthless, really, and yet not worthless at all. For they are windows, not smudged by time, into our recent history. What was written about Brexit, say, or Donald Trump two years ago – and written without the luxury of distance – acquires new meaning. It’s done; he’s gone. Neither seemed likely in 2019. Isn’t that uplifting? The restaurant and theatre reviews are particularly poignant, too.      

But here’s the thing: the more stuff I accumulate, the better I like my space (or lack thereof). Books and magazines, posters and mugs, cushions and rugs – they all bring texture and warmth to a room. We are isolated enough as it is; why maroon ourselves in a sea of white walls and straight lines?

A cynic would no doubt say this is all just retail therapy, that I am stuffing the void brought about by the pandemic with more and more objects. I disagree. To ferret around, to browse, to find just the thing, is to bring life into your home. And there is never a better time for that than now.

In fact, to adapt a phrase from Marie Kondo, this little lockdown hobby of mine is sparking an awful lot of joy.    

Yours,

Rupert Hawksley

Senior commissioning editor, Voices