My pledge to not buy any new clothes or new shoes for a year
ended in early July. My wife and I had taken this pledge together.
It wasn’t difficult to go without buying clothes or shoes.
My life doesn’t require many interactions with people since I work from home. Other
people who see me may think that I am retired because I wear loose denim pants
and a t-shirt in the summer whenever I shop for groceries or take a walk
outside. Once a month or so, my wife and I venture a bit farther from home when
we visit our son or see a movie; those are the few occasions when I wear what I
used to think of as my teaching clothes—i.e., chino pants and a collared shirt.
(My wife tends to think of men’s clothes as boring because there are so options
and so few acceptable colors—navy blue, black, white, burgundy, dark green,
red, etc.)
I had bought new shoes before our pledge took affect and
because I anticipated not buying any other shoes for a year, I bought a second
pair of the same style to have them in reserve. I am wearing that second pair
now, but I am not ready to buy any more.
Because gifts didn’t count against the pledge that we took,
my wife bought me a few pairs of boxer shorts for Father’s Day. Since our
pledge ended, my wife bought a few things and insisted that I buy the
equivalent amount. I have since returned the chino pants I ordered because
their rise was too short. My sister teasingly says that I am at the age where
it is acceptable to wear my pants up to my waist, which is what I have been
doing since I gave up wearing Levi 501 jeans about ten years ago.
When I went through my closet and my drawers, I thought I
might have found more clothes to give away. Piles of clothes, mostly old
sweatshirts and old t-shirts, were taken to the local Goodwill. Sometimes,
however, my wife would snag for herself the shirts that I wanted to donate. I ended
up regretting giving away an old hoodie, one that I had gotten in Oklahoma about
twenty-five years ago; it would have been great for working in the yard in the
autumn or early spring. I recently revisited the Goodwill, thinking that I
could buy back that old hoodie, even though a year had passed, but it
apparently had been grabbed by someone else.
Sorting through my clothes led me to re-discover what I had
forgotten about or what I had stored away because I gained weight. I never have been a believer in giving away what I hadn’t worn in over a year’s time. Having
lost about ten or fifteen pounds on my vegetarian diet, it is now possible to
wear some of the shirts that I had put aside.
It would have been a bigger challenge for me if I had
pledged not to buy any books, used or new, or any music downloads for an entire
year. That kind of pledge would make me turn to the books that I have bought
over the years but have not yet read. That kind of pledge would make me visit
the local library again or to request books through interlibrary loan at the
college where I teach. With the seventy gigabytes of music that have downloaded
onto my computer, either by ripping my CD’s or by purchasing mp3's, I probably
could find something to discover in the music that I already own. Streaming
music on Spotify, for example, isn’t a temptation for me. During
the past few months, it has been relatively easy leaving Barnes & Noble
without purchasing anything. Occasionally, I may take a picture of a book that
looks interesting but that remains too expensive. During the past few months, I
have been limiting the music that I buy, too. There are some new releases that
I am looking forward to, such as Trygve Seim’s upcoming album on the ECM label,
which will be released at the end of August. For the time being, I am satisfying
myself with what I already own.
Minimalism remains an attractive idea. There is a limit to
how much stuff I can fit into my life.
