The Spiritual Archaeology of Hoarding

I live with a hoarder. When I moved back into my childhood home, I knew my greatest challenge would be addressing The Collections.

What I didn’t know? The manner in which we approach such challenges has the power to humanize or to dehumanize, and that working through the things my mother (Fancy Nancy, we call her) has kept and curated would be enlightening, heartbreaking, healing, hilarious, and at times even beautiful.

I cannot begin to address the vast collections held in this house in the space of one blog post, not if I want to do them (and Fancy Nancy) the kindness they deserve. There are reasons for each, and as frustrated as we have been over the years leading up to this, for as much as I can’t fully understand, I get it, on some level. I look into her eyes. I see it, even for a moment. I think I can safely tackle two major collections: the furniture, and the fabric.

How many antique sewing machines are too many?

a row of vintage Singer sewing machines — photo credit https://unsplash.com/@tracminhvu

Really, I’m asking. I have lost count; I always forget how many we have. They are stashed everywhere. See, Fancy Nancy learned to sew from her mother and made something of a name for herself as a custom tailor and sewing educator; my sister and I were both known by name at the state level of competitive sewing circles by our tween years. Sewing was a Big Deal in our home. We have the machine on which my mom learned to sew, an antique Singer. It still works. We also have my great-grandmother’s treadle sewing machine (the kind that doesn’t use electricity), a treadle sewing machine that belonged to the original homesteaders of this section of land, and at least one more treadle machine Fancy Nancy has picked up at auction. These machines have history. Provenance. Miles of stitches sewn by women working care and creative labors over several generations.

We have furniture belonging to various relatives who have passed away in the last 40 years, some of it actually being used, some of it stored in various places around the farm. No one else wanted it, so mom rescued it; she couldn’t stand the idea of it not being wanted. I think there’s something to that, if I peel it back a little, but some things are not mine to poke. We are slowly finding homes for the less sentimental pieces, and I’m learning to live with furniture in every corner.

I’m sorry I never finished; thank you for your service

When I first arrived, we undertook the daunting task of combining Fancy Nancy’s two crafting rooms into one room. This required a massive de-stash of her fabric and scrapbooking hoards. We mostly de-stashed the fabric in the end, deciding to keep the quilting fabric and donate or sell the bulk of her apparel fabrics.

Some of those pieces were older than I am.

I am a firm believer in consent-based care. I told my mother right away that I might offer some guidance, I would help us stay focused, but I would not make any unilateral decisions. Y’all, this was not how I grew up, so holding this space for my mom was different for both of us.

We spent a lot of time just looking at fabric. I still don’t know how there was so much! It was like an archaeological dig—the deeper we dug, the older the pieces, the more interesting the stories. In one drawer, we found several outfits my mom had cut out to make for me when I was a toddler. Sadness fell over her face when we found that. I asked, “Should we throw this one?” She said, “It seems like such a waste! It would have been so cute on you.”

I held it up to my body, and I said, “It’s okay to let things go. Why don’t you say good-bye to it?” I had been coaching her to use the technique I got from Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, but she thought thanking items for their service seemed hokey. Until this moment. She held the little outfit, still with its tissue paper pattern pieces, and said, “I’m sorry I never finished. Thank you for your service.” And we let it go.

Not everything was sad. We found scraps of Ultra Suede and ripstop nylon, and we laughed about some interesting fashion choices my sister and I made back in the 1990s when we were sewing for 4-H. We laughed about actual fights we had over fabric, we laughed about the sequins from my freshman prom dress that we are still finding in random places, and we laughed about the creepy doll head she kept handing to me in a plastic bag, which scared me every single time.

There’s a lot I still don’t know or understand about Fancy Nancy. But cleaning her sewing room was illuminating. Through all that fabric, down through the layers and years, she started to open up. She talked about her mom. I heard stories I’d never heard.

We didn’t cure the hoarding. But I understand it — and my mom — and myself — a little better. I still don’t know how many sewing machines we have.