Dead on Arrival



Death Cleaning (Cleansing). The latest rage in decluttering circles. Change your life forever by purging your stuff circles. The last was Marie Kondo, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying up. (Nothing will change your life forever, or even for a day, usually. And magic isn't magic, either.) Death, then Life. Full circle, but the other way 'round.Though among some religious folks, it is exactly the right way 'round. (I'm a pagan. Just stick 'em in the ground and let them rot. Good for the tomatoes.)

Post Humus
Patti Tana

Scatter my ashes in my garden
So I can be near my loves.
Say a few honest words, sing a gentle song,
Join hands in a circle of flesh.
Please tell some stories about me
making you laugh. I love to make you laugh.
When I've had time to settle, and green
gathers into buds, remember I love blossoms
bursting in spring. As the season ripens
remember my persistent passion.
And if you come in my garden
on an August afternoon
pluck a bright red globe, let juice run down your chin and the seeds
stick to your cheek. When I'm dead
I want folks to smile and say That Patti,
she sure is some tomato!

 So. Death Cleaning. I don't know about you, but when I'm dead, I don't want to clean anymore. Or perhaps it means, cleaning will kill you. That's a fact. It will kill your knees and the joints in your hands. How many times have I cracked my head on the piano, or run smack dab into the edge of a table.

I'm just, literally, trash talking. That's not what Margareta Magnusson means ("Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleansing") She means, throw it out before you die so your kids and friends don't have to.

I will admit from the outset that when I zero in on these trendy folks, part of me is jealous and wish I were famous.

But that's only about 8%. How did I come up with that statistic? Who cares! It's the Trumpage! I can make up whatever fact I want!

O.K. First. I'll be dead, and I won't know or care what my kids have to contend with. That's their problem.

Second. It's my turn. So far, for most of my life, it's been about sending more money to the kids, buying them this or that: a refrigerator (with an ice-maker. I don't even have one!); dry wall to refinish the basement, down payments on two houses; swimming lessons for the grandkids; a destination wedding in Puerto Villarta, MX; at least three college educations, four if you include graduate school; and I've not even listed all the time, energy and resources when they were young, the sleepless nights, the colds and flus that I would have avoided if I'd been single. And so on and so on and so on!

Yes. Of course. I love, I adore my children and grandchildren. That's why I didn't smother them in their cribs when I was going on three days without sleep or abandon them on the street corner when it was 95 degrees and they whined for the tenth time about the toy I wouldn't buy.

But it's my turn! It's my turn to whine and say, "I want this junk!"

I mean it. I want these things around me. The bulky oak furniture. The glass tchatkas (how the heck do you spell that?) The pretty lamps that don't work. The million books. The Tupperware bowls with no lids. The thousand cheap forks that I bought at the Dollar Store in case the New York Philharmonic came to call. The box of old slides that ten generations of mice have peed and pooped in for decades. The ragged dog collars of not one but three dogs who passed to the big doggie park in the sky. The dusty dried flower bouquets. And on and on and on.

It belongs to me. It comforts me. It holds memories. "Magnusson says, "Don't start with photographs--or letters or personal papers [when you are decluttering]. If you start with them, you will definitely get stuck down memory lane [like that is a bad thing?] and may never get around to cleaning anything else." Yes! Begin with them. Get stuck down memory lane. It was your life. It is memorable because it was hilarious and tender, terrifying and sad, meaningful and unique. Hold it all to your heart.

I'm not going to give it away until the very last minute. Well, the minute after the last minute. Then, you can do what you want with it.


The Stuff Stream is the path that "stuff" takes as it travels through your home, from the moment it crosses the threshold, until it leaves by the back door, or perhaps the window, in a plastic or paper bag, a box, a bin, in your arms, or dragging it across the lawn.

Or in a shroud. Which is really just a bag to put stuff in. We are just stuff, yes? From dust (literal) we are made, to dust we will return.

Plant my mortal stuff among the tomatoes.

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