Junk

by Alison Stewart

  Q: Do you understand at all the minimalist aesthetic?

  Carter: It’s hard for me. It’s hard for me to understand.

  Q: Do you relate at all?

  Carter: Yeah, so about the same time I went to work for Ralph, so it was like over twenty-five years ago, and I thought we found another place, that I wanted to declutter this apartment because I was beginning to feel like it was just getting—I was beginning to feel like I was being possessed by my possessions, and I needed to purge. And I expressed this to some of my friends, and they just laughed. They looked at me and laughed. Are you kidding me? No, no. I’m not kidding. When we get that house in the country and I can just enjoy all my stuff up there, but I think I really want to clean out the apartment and make it—I walked into people’s lofts, and there was just something really refreshing about the sparseness and how having fewer things made them maybe more important than having lots of things. And I said, What I’d do is I’d clean everything out. I’d leave that long table, so we’d have the dining room table. And the kids could—they were smaller then. They could ride their bikes through the house, and it would just be so much cleaner. And I think I would enjoy having two ways of living. I mean, I know I’m really fortunate because most people are lucky to have one way to live. So we got the house in the country, filled it up with more stuff, sometimes transferred, but more than likely it was like bringing stuff here. I guess I’m just—I appreciate and I walk into someone’s—that lives more minimally than we do, and there’s—the people have soul and character. It doesn’t matter how much stuff you have. It shines through. It’s just I’m not built like that. I have to have the stuff, but I appreciate and I’ve fantasized about living that way.

  Q: You did say, and I think this is important, you don’t believe in living in a mess.

  Carter: No, I don’t. Some people, you know, a mess is a mess is a mess, and clutter is defined in different ways. I call clutter the poetry of our lives because when I look around, I feel like—but mess is—

  Q: You feel like it is . . . ?

  Carter: I am very, like, every morning I have my rituals of like—you were coming. I said to Howard, Get up. I want to make the bed. I want the bed made, and I want the—oh, well, dishes. I don’t like when there’s disorder, particularly when you live with a lot of stuff. I think you have to have—you try to keep it in some kind of order. When I look around, I mean, I find—I see the stories, and I feel a kind of a poetry and memory, and I just—that’s when I told you I started taking pictures of things because they speak to me. So I love having lots of things around me. They keep me sane and safe. When I come home at night, I feel like this is my home.

  Q: When you find something in a store and you pick it up and you have it in your hands, is there something you should ask yourself before you buy it, or should you just go with your gut? Is it just a gut thing, or is it more than just, Here’s five dollars, I like it, I’m taking it home?

  Carter: I think it’s gut. I mean, I believe when I see something that I love, sometimes maybe it’s because I have that collection, so it might be tied to adding to something. But sometimes it just speaks to me, and if it’s five dollars, I mean, come on—put it in the bag. I do haggle, though, too. I think that’s part of the fun. But I would never insult someone. I try to—because I’ve been in that situation myself as being a seller—I know that if someone has put what they think is the right price, and you kind of know, I wouldn’t want to insult anyone by saying, can you do better? . . . So sometimes it depends what the mission is. If there’s a utility and you’re trying to find something, then you have to ask some questions to be respectful of the person. But for me when I go, I mean, what did I find yesterday?

  Q: You’re a hunter and a gatherer.

  Carter: I am. I mean, I saw a little folding red metal chair yesterday that was just—I love the color. I just had to have it.

  Q: Yeah. I have a milk crate from my parents’ first apartment on West Seventy-Fifth Street that is my favourite end table in our house in Woodstock. It’s always going to be there.

  Carter: Oh, that’s so great. Yeah.

  Q: What’s been a proud professional moment for you? We didn’t talk about your work very much.

  Carter: A proud professional moment?

  Q: People know about your professional life already, so I didn’t really want to talk about it too much. There’s much to read online. But I’m wondering if you have a proud professional moment you think about and you’re think, Wow, I did a very good job. That was a good thing.

  Carter: You mean like in my job at Ralph Lauren? I’ve been really—I think that my work life, there are a lot of proud moments because I’ve been working for a long time and for Ralph for twenty-six years. I guess my proudest moment was the day that I brought home the first copy of his fortieth anniversary book. We printed it, and Lee and I had the first copy. And I was so nervous because it was to celebrate forty years of his creativity. And though I had done it with him, I still had trepidation. And I sat with him. Big book, 380 pages. I don’t know. It’s big. And I sat with him in his office, and he just turned every page, and I just sat there. And I think at the end, he’d written—we’d written something together about acknowledgments, and there was something about his mother and father. And he just—Ralph’s—he’s a very emotional guy, and he just—he put his head down, and he’s going, Oh, my God. And he lifted it up, and there were just like tears coming down. He knew it was a proud moment for me, too, because I think I—it was—I came to him. I always wanted to be a writer. I always liked doing books, and he allowed me in these last twenty-six years to continue to do my own books because he felt that was a part of who I was.

  Q: That’s great. Last question. This is the first question in my book, so hopefully this will be the last question. What is your definition of junk?

  Carter: So for me junk—and not j-u-n-q-u-e or whatever, just j-u-n-k—it’s a four-letter word. To me junk is—it’s kind of—it’s stuff. When you think of a junk store, you just think of random things that are detritus of people’s lives that have been pulled together. They don’t have any particular value. It’s the things that when people have a yard sale, they’re cleaning out. They want to get rid of this junk. I can’t live with this junk anymore. But for me, to me junk is—yeah, it’s the evidence of life. And some of it’s—there’s really bad, tacky junk, and then there’s just meaningful junk. And I’ve always said, it’s always—you give meaning. You give meaning and value to the things. So it is in the eye of the beholder for me. Junk to me is fun. It’s color. It’s whimsy. It doesn’t cost a lot. But it’s priceless.

  EPILOGUE

  * * *

  A HUMAN BEING’S DESIRE to have his or her junk close by is nothing new. Ancient Egyptians were buried with their furniture, jewelry, and food because you never know what you might need in the afterlife.

  About Need, want, and value are the pesky intangibles that lurk around the definition of junk. Need and want shape-shift depending on where perceived value decides to land. What you value may not be what the lady next door values, or even the open free market values, and that is why finding a modern universal definition of junk may not be possible. Although there will be those who try.

  Just as I was wrapping up the second draft of this book I received a promotional e-mail from the behemoth junk removal chain 1-800-GOT JUNK. The subject line read, “Ways to know if it’s junk or not,” and the content of e-mail was a late night show–type top ten list. Initially it struck me as funny that I was getting junk e-mail from a junk removal company, and then I thought, “Well, this would have come in handy two years ago.” But back before I’d taken a deep dive into American junk culture, I would not have seen the meaning in the list. It would have simply been funny and a good bit of advertising. The e-mail read:

  “You know it’s junk when . . . ”

  10. You’ve bought a newer version of it.

  9. You haven’t used it in over a year.


  8. It’s getting in the way.

  7. It’s broken and can’t be fixed.

  6. You’re embarrassed by it.

  5. You can’t remember what its purpose is.

  4. The cost of the space it takes up is more than its value to you.

  3. It has developed a strange smell, leak, or color.

  2. It is now home to woodland animals.

  1. The sight of it scares small children.

  Number 1 is for comic relief, and junk can be funny, intentionally or not. Number 2 is a reality if you live in the pack rat territory. Numbers 3, 5, and 8 address the cognitive issues, such as “clutter blindness,” that can come with being chronically disorganized. Numbers 4, 7, 9, and 10 speak to junk-related commercialism and the enabling of people to acquire more and more. The list codifies the way that junk has become a major influencer in the early twenty-first-century America.

  While circling back to all the notes, books, articles, interviews, and events I experienced while researching this book, I realized my practical and cynical analyses of this country’s relationship with stuff intersect. Because there is money to be made, junk is now a part of life, and as hard as minimalists try, I doubt the country can or will go cold turkey.

  So what do we do about it? I came to a thoroughly nonprofessional, nonscientific conclusion based on what I had seen and experienced: mindfulness is the answer.

  Saying the word mindfulness is risky. It can lead to eye rolling or slow nodding or mild confusion. But it is more than just a lofty message painted on a garden stone. Mindfulness is at the center of centuries-old religions and practices, yet it is quite useful in today’s chaotic world where so much, well, stuff is coming at us.

  I reached out to therapist Adrienne Glasser, who believes in the applicability of the practice in modern life. “The definition of mindfulness is remembering to come back to the present moment. This process is very helpful to increase awareness of habitual patterns because we can begin to see exactly how we get stuck. By seeing the true nature of our habitual patterns, we can start to become curious in the moment, about new options or new ways of being. Also being gentle with oneself with compassion is key to any change. Getting frustrated with ourselves and our ‘junk’ only creates internal conflict and feeling a sense of shame that can distract from what is actually possible in the moment.”

  Whether you have too much stuff because you don’t have time to deal with it or you are extra sensitive to those who sell it or if your executive function doesn’t work well, mindfulness as least gives you a chance. It also gives you a moment to stop and figure out if you really want to buy this thing or if you want to keep that object. The answer might be, Hell yeah, but mindfulness gives you the opportunity to say no.

  Glasser thinks the original intention of mindfulness can apply directly to those who want to reassess their relationship with their stuff. She says, “Buddhist philosophy and the concept of impermanence are also very useful when it comes to the attachment we all have to our junk. If everything is temporary, then how important is it really? The over-attachment we have to our stuff is what causes so much suffering. Our appreciation of things in the moment can give us pleasure, but once we get hooked to expecting the same results from our things at a later date in the future, then we are caught. Appreciation in the moment and accepting all is impermanent allows us to feel the beauty of our things, and then gives us the ability to let them go.”

  I got up the courage to share my conclusion with a nationally recognized expert. Dr. David Tolin is an adjunct professor of psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine. He was a principal investigator for the National Institute of Health. He is the author of more than 150 scientific articles. My original conversation with Dr. Tolin was about his experience with those challenged by disorganization. At the end of our straightforward interview I took my shot: I mentioned my thought that mindfulness might be the best salve for dealing with things. Dr. Tolin perked up at the idea. The exchange went like this:

  Me: Something I’ve been thinking of since I’ve been writing this book is mindfulness. In terms of people who maybe aren’t on the hoarding scale, who really aren’t at that level of having some sort of mental illness, but who can’t get a handle on things. Like people who have to diet their whole lives—it’s about being mindful when you go to the buffet. So when it comes to buying stuff, it is being mindful when you go into Target, you know? It seems to me we’ve kind of lost our way when it comes to things.

  Dr. Tolin: You and I are thinking along the same lines, because that’s an area that I’ve been interested in as well. In the past one of the things that we used to spend a lot of time doing in our treatment was trying to change people’s minds. . . . And you know, it’s too early to make a definitive call, so I don’t want to give it a clear thumbs up or thumbs down, but as the data are coming in about our treatments, I think we’re seeing less and less reason to be optimistic about that particular angle. So increasingly we’ve been experimenting here with having people take somewhat more of a mindfulness-based approach, which is that, you know, look as you enter a situation where you have to sort and make decisions and discard objects. You’re probably going to think a lot of things and you’re going to feel a lot of things. Instead of struggling with those things, instead of freezing up and then trying to analyze your thoughts and decide if it’s rational, and instead of trying to calm down, maybe what makes some sense would be for you to be mindful of it, recognize that you’re having these thoughts and feelings and then sort of make a decision about, well, what do I want to do in the moment, not just what does this thought in my head want me to do, or what does this emotion want me to do. And we sometimes refer to it as “being your own boss.” You know, can I be my own boss rather than letting my thoughts and feelings be the boss here.

  It is something I am facing as my own boss, now that this book is complete. I have a confession: as I packed up my boxes of research, I immediately put them in my basement. Yes, I put them in my basement. The last time I was down there I looked around and it looked a little full. A lot full. While it is nowhere near what my parents had acquired, I have a pretty impressive load down there.

  So did I learn this behavior from my parents, or is it innate, or was I not mindful, or was I too busy to make decisions so I put stuff down there for later? Yes. The answer to all ove it is yes. And yes, I have junk. What will I do about it? I’m not sure. How about you?

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  * * *

  ABOUT A WEEK BEFORE Christmas 2014 I received an e-mail from Junk Busters USA Chief Junk Officer Steve Welhausen. We’d stayed in touch so initially I assumed it was a friendly holiday greeting. However the subject line read “Well that wasn’t on the action list for the day . . .” Steve had cancer. Pancreatic cancer, the same disease that killed my dad and started me on this crazy journey. The e-mail was laced with humor and full of skeptical hope. But as I knew firsthand, pancreatic cancer leads to a painful decline and most people don’t survive a year after this diagnosis. Steve passed away in August 2015 at age fifty-three. To tell you the kind of guy he was, during his illness he remembered my son was a Spurs fan. Through a friend he managed to get a signed basketball for my seven-year-old despite his own personal trials. That is a ball that will never be considered junk in our house. If you are inclined to continue Steve’s goodwill, please think about making a donation to Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, www.pancan.org. It receives four stars, and a score of 96.84 out of 100, from the watchdog website Charity Navigator.

  As always, I am grateful to my agent Jane Dystel, my editors Jerome Pohlen and Michelle Williams, and the folks at Chicago Review Press. I’d also like to thank Silvia Peixoto, Lisa Stewart Crisp, and Scooter Alpert for their physical help and emotional support; Vicky Pasquantonio for her research skills; and my friend and three-time Jeopardy champion Tricia McKinney, a brilliant sounding board.

  NOTES

  * * *

  Chapter 1: The 411 on Junk


  1. Ronda Robinson, “Highway 411 Opens Up Charming, Peaceful Vistas,” Tennessee Home and Farm website, February 15, 2011, www.tnhomeandfarm.com/travel/highway-411.

  Chapter 2: Pack Rats (Human and Otherwise)

  1. The ICD Guide to Challenging Disorganization: For Professional Organizers (St. Louis: Institute for Challenging Disorganization, 2012), 52.

  2. Russell W. Belk, Melanie Wallendorf, John F. Sherry Jr., and Morris B. Holbrook, “Collecting in a Consumer Culture,” Highways and Buyways: Naturalistic Research from the Consumer Behavior Odyssey (Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research, 1991), 178–215.

  3. “History of the wunderkammern (cabinet of curiosities),” Tate Museum, 2003, www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/mark-dion-tate-thames-dig/wunderkammen.

  4. Mary Beard, “Lord Elgin: Savior or Vandal?,” www.bbc.co.uk, February 17, 2011.