I don't know. I have a friend-- an old college friend, that I would call an anti-hoarder. She and her husband split up after almost thirty years of marriage. It was one of those perfect marriages that blew apart in about 6 weeks. She moved into a smaller home, asked for and received all of the furniture and then broke it up with a crowbar and a sledge hammer. The one china cabinet that she kept, she painted white.
I haven't seen her in ten years but staying with her was surreal. She only had one living room chair--white. No coffee table, no sofa. She carried the chair upstairs in the summer, downstairs in the winter. The dining room was completely empty. There was one very small kitchen table and one kitchen chair.
We ate outside, where there was one lawn chair. We took the kitchen chair out, onto the deck and then carried it back in. When she went to work I sat outside on the deck, writing and watching the birds. It was in Carpentersville, Illinois, so it wasn't as hot or dusty as Kansas. She did have a great garden--mostly white flowers and silver leaves. She couldn't stand anything variegated.
She did buy a tea mug and plate for me from a second hand store. White. Other than that there was only one bowl, one plate, one glass, one mug in the cabinet. She told me she'd decided to simplify her life. She had even completely cut off one of her three kids and pretty much alienated another.
Her father and two brothers had remodeled her basement into an office that winter. Curious, I asked her how she fed them. When my brother comes to my house to do anything for me, I cook for him or treat him to a cafe meal, have his favorite pastry and beer. (Yeah--bear claws and beer do not make for a slim physique but that is another story.)
She seemed puzzled by the question. She said they brought their own coffee and cups in a thermos, packed a lunch.
Why don't I write a story about her? She's a little spooky and I know she would over react--s6
