Even before Kondo set the world on fire with the idea of letting go of things we no longer enjoyed, my husband had read Karen Kingston’s Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui (1999). We both liked the way she showed how to create sacred space.

A few years later, I smiled at Kondo’s way of sorting by categories from easier to harder: clothes, books, papers, things and mementos. One mistake I made was putting all my books in one big pile that took a whole day to sort.

Magnusson’s second book, The Swedish Art of Exuberantly Aging (2022) hit the spot. Hearing from someone who was a traditional wife, mother and creative artist, on how she accepted the changes that happen with age, was uplifting and reassuring. In the first book she told of having to clean up after the deaths of three close relatives, and how she vowed not to that pass chore on to her family. In the second, she shared more about the ways she’d learned to enjoy life in different settings with changing physical limits. Her good cheer was priceless.

The pressure from tragedies and disasters to overpower beauty and goodness may seem relentless, and yet, that’s the point. What we focus on makes a difference and I hope that gratefully letting go of things I no longer use will uplift someone else.

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