Putting the SOCIAL in Spring Cleaning

Paddling int he Ten Thousand Islands, FL (photo by Carmella Guiol)

You know when someone is getting ready to move in my neighborhood when they start putting cardboard boxes full of stuff on the curb. My neighbors are moving after nine years in their current house and from their curb I have rescued: a box of chalk, two nets for catching insects and crawdads in the river, a faded but perfectly usable body board, tomato cages, grow bags, and a small swimming pool. They also gifted my boys a large plastic dinosaur which they surreptitiously left in our sandbox. I love our neighborhood because this practice of passing on unneeded stuff in this very stress-free way is commonplace. I have received many gifts from unknown neighbors who have left stuff on their curb, or who have turned to our neighborhood listserv to give stuff away. (When we were brand new in town, I put out a message on the listserv looking for toddler toys and was offered an abundance of lovely play things for my son, my first introduction to the magic of the listserv.)

As someone who cares a lot about the planet, I love this practice of passing on used things and giving them a new life. I worry about the excess of stuff that we are drowning in—and the trash that is accumulating in our oceans and turning to pollution in our incinerators. On a personal level, I find it hard throwing stuff away, mainly because I don’t want to create trash but also because I have some hoarder tendencies. I hold on to things so as not to have the guilty conscience of clogging up our planet with my refuse. I also try not to buy things that will eventually become uninteresting or unnecessary and will therefore necessitate the heart wrenching question: “What do I do with this thing that is of no use to me?” Regardless, my house is full of things that are no longer of any use to me, and still, I hold onto them.

I came across someone online proclaiming their love for their local Buy Nothing group – not because she got free stuff but because it was a wonderful place to get rid of her own stuff in a positive way – by passing it on to someone else. Like myself, this person is a bit of a hoarder and doesn’t get much joy out of bringing donations to the Goodwill. The whole interaction is impersonal, and for someone who has trouble shedding personal items, the thrift store route may not satisfy the emotional attachment that we develop to our stuff. While I appreciate the things that people put out on the curb, there are many possessions that I am too attached to and therefore don’t feel comfortable putting in a cardboard box outside my house.

On Sunday, my husband took the boys on a day trip and I had the house blissfully to myself. I headed for my closet, a place that has long needed a major purge. My lifestyle has radically changed in the last few years—I no longer live in the tropics, I am the mother of two toddlers—and yet my wardrobe does not reflect my new reality. So with my trusty fashion confidante on FaceTime (my sister, Gaby), I proceeded to dump out the contents of my closet and put on a fashion show. My sister was ruthless; “get rid of it!” was her frequent refrain, and for the most part, I acquiesced. Some of the items that were harder to part with had sentimental value, like several dresses that came from a good friend’s closet after she passed away and a robe that my father used in the last years of his life.

Later that evening, I took photos of all the items in my “get rid of” pile and posted them on a local Facebook group called “Bull City Shares,” Durham’s equivalent of a Buy Nothing group. (I had performed a test run a few days before with a batch of skin care products that were collecting dust in my bathroom—the products were gone to a happy home 12 hours later. Same with decorations from my friend’s bachelorette party; we used them once, then I put them up on the Facebook group, and now, presumably, they are making another bachelorette very happy.) Within minutes, people were commenting on the clothing items, asking me to consider giving them a shirt because it was their favorite shade of purple or a pair of pants that were in their daughter’s size.

I was tickled with delight. Over the next few days, I packed clothes into paper bags and left them on my front porch for strangers to pick up and give them a new life. Not all the clothing items have been claimed, but amazingly, all the ones with sentimental value have found new homes.

The concept of Buy Nothing groups is not new. I remember in the days of Craigslist when you could get leftover building materials and all matter of stuff for free. People would post stuff on there with an address, and it would be gone within an hour. In Bull City Shares, someone asked for large plastic containers for her plants last week; I left some large plastic containers on my front stoop and sent her my address. A few hours later, they were spoken for. Trash turned into treasure! These kinds of community trades being me joy; like in the bartering days of old, when people would give away what they had to receive something from someone else that they needed. We all have resources and they should be in motion, constantly in the process of being used, re-used, recycled, upcycled.

Next up: my jewelry. My collection of earrings is epic; it’s taken me decades to amass the momentous amount of earrings that I currently have in my possession. But I only wear a small fraction of that jewelry. After my experience with my clothes, I feel excited about passing on my earrings to people who will enjoy wearing them, like I did once upon a time.

I know I complain a lot about social media, but there are ways that it can be a force for good, too. It can be a powerful tool for strengthening our communities and improving our lives if we use it as such—as a tool. I won’t say that giving my clothes away on Facebook has made my community network stronger, per se, but it has turned the act of getting rid of stuff into a social one, one that connects me to real people, and that, in turn, has made the experience more memorable and pleasant for me.  

🧹Housekeeping

✍️Represent! I am seeking representation for a nonfiction book based on this newsletter. If you or someone you know works in the publishing industry, please contact me at carmella.guiol@gmail.com.

🚀 Growing this newsletter! Please forward this newsletter to all of your friends! And don’t forget to post about it on social media (if you’re into that kind of thing — and if you are, add me on TikTok and Instagram).

🔥Something new: I added a paid subscription option. For now, the content will be the same for both paid and free subscriptions. I’m just giving readers the option of paying for my newsletter if they so desire!

🌀In the pipeline: Stay tuned to learn more about SCROLL SANITY: THE PODCAST, where I will speak with a wide variety of guests about their strategies for staying sane in a digital world.

🗞️Article of the Week

No Likes. No Shares. No Nothing. by yours truly ✨

For this piece, I wrote about my own experience taking an extended social media sabbatical (which I’ve written about before) while also weaving in the experiences of my fellow Amherst College alums. It was really fun to speak to smart people about their relationships to social media. I hope you’ll check out the piece to read their perspectives!

She swore off social media for a year, then asked other Amherst people what they liked/unliked about their own online presence.

🎵Song of the Week:

The Lost Words Blessing

This song is breathtaking to listen to, and difficult to learn(I’ve tried many times), but what makes it even more hard-hitting is that it was written with words that have been removed from the Oxford Junior Dictionary — most of them words describing nature.

The creators of the song explain: “The editing body of the OED had determined that the words were of little and lessening use to the modern child. Youngsters weren’t hob-nobbing with hedgehogs and wrens (also excised) and frogs and buttercups (another casualty!), and so needn’t be introduced to words that served well only with regards to the out-of-doors. They excused their actions on the grounds that they needed room for other, newer words with greater relevance to the modern child. Like: attachment, blog, broadband, chatroom, database, committee, and voice-mail.” (Read more about it here.)

Enter the wild with care, my love
And speak the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow

SCROLL SANITY is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.