Spice Jars

My thirtysomething year old son who is far wiser than he knows (I think) made the most succinctly enlightened comment to me the other day. He and my nephew were visiting. We were going through all of the generic Stuff that my parents have been toting around for the last 68 years, from house to house, garage to garage. He, my nephew, and I went through at least a hundred boxes of....Stuff, carefully deciding (okay.....sometimes, maybe not so carefully) whether to "Keep It", "Sell It", or "Dumpster It."

I can't remember now what the object was that was in question. Doesn't really matter. But the three of us stood there, in the barn-that-is-now-more-of-a-gigantic-storage-room, and stared at the object while individually formulating an opinion about how to categorize it. I was the first to speak.

"Oh I have to keep that," I said decisively as I reached to take the object.

But my enlightened son stopped me mid-reach and said simply, "Why would you keep that?

Honestly, I had no answer. I didn't know why I wanted to keep it. It wasn't even for sentimental reasons. In fact, it wasn't so much that I wanted to keep it. I just didn't want to throw it out. And it was at that moment that I realized a profound truth: Keeping something simply as an alternative to throwing it out, is not a valid reason for keeping it.

Now...a week later. I'm on fire with the ever-present question that, thanks to my son, is now burned into my brain--Why would I keep that? I've successfully and happily de-cluttered countless drawers (all of those 50+ year old spice jars in the kitchen drawer--are poppy seeds still good after 50 years? I doubt it.), cupboards (Really. How many containers of Adolph's Meat Tenderizer does a person need???), and boxes (Why I had 27 prints made of my first winter in Michigan, I'll never know.) with the singular objective in mind--Why would I keep that?

It's like a little mental miracle.