Clutterphobia

 Who started the no "clutter" phase? It seems to have arrived when the glass and steel condo towers began. All white inside and tight spaces. The more nothing, the less stress was the by-word. Not true. While I agree that harboring random junk might be a nuisance, keeping the bits and pieces of your life cannot correctly be labelled hoarding. Hoarding is when you don't take out the garbage.  The degrees of hanging on to memories are varied but essentially, what one does with ones "stuff" is ones own business. When I walk into a room and it is magazine sheer, all white and in nursery tones, I am supposed to  feel that it is airy and spacious. Not so. I feel as though I am in a holograph of  the cover of that well-known glossy magazine some people use as a decorating bible. The room says nothing to me. Buckingham palace with its old junk, very old actually, its furniture showing a history, its over-plumped cushions and walls heavily beleaguered by framed portraits of those no one knows or cares to, its genuine clutter, if so, can be felt overwhelmingly as a space not beautiful, but historic. It has depth. There is something suspicious about the all white movement in decor. White is without meaning deliberately. White insists on disallowing the eye to linger. It's glare, however, does not bring relief from stress or an aura of cleanliness and peace as is suggested. To me, it's like landing in a surgery and fearing what's next. There is no "next". Its Nursery bits of turquoise, pink and sea green are designed to keep the eye from sliding right into eternity. They rescue you presumably. The stretches of solid marble and steel pieces are there, fortunately, to ground you from sailing off.  One magazine room is much like every other when you are on the condo shopping circuit. Decor-wise,  we have The Painting usually something indescribable other than the usual flat sea scene with or without sunset.  And it is essential to have in the for sale space, some sort of weird three dimensional ob-jay to talk about over the champagne, stem in hand, before signing that mortgage on the dotted line.  Realtors hire folk who come in with truck loads of light pieces and do up every condo they peddle. The sleek fake furnishings are there to help you imagine what a perfect magazine life you will have within the arms of your impossibly tiny white  space that likely you will never have paid for in your entire life.  And when you do move in, for awhile it stays all white and uncluttered. But very few people can live with white on white for long. It's unnatural for one thing to live day by day in open space, and not pull things around you for comfort and security.  Another reality is that unless you are in your early twenties and have nothing but work in your life anyway, most buyers of rooms eventually acquire memories. They come in the form of things: trip mementos, photographs, beloved books , cushions to hold, wraps and throws for cosy times, odd tables and small found items: nature bits,  ceramics, games. The list goes on as do the years of your life. Entering a room with nothing but white and steel, denotes a life of nothing. Like a transit station, the place is something to pass through as quickly as possible. When I go into a room belonging to someone else, I want to see someone in their galaxy with their planets revolving about, their clutter, their character shining and their human warmth on display. Clutter me.