04/13/2026
A new Silver Linings Blog has been posted!
Lessons in Downsizing
Silver Linings, Vol. 4, No. 3
By Mary Elizabeth Naegele
My new friend Gale and I were waiting to buy postcards at Mount Vernon recently when she spoke a bit about her move from New York last fall. She said she’d relocated with very few of her belongings. The cashier, a woman in her 70’s, overheard us and said she too had left most of her things behind when she moved from South Carolina to her daughter’s Northern Virginia basement.
It was surprising to be in the company of two women who had quickly and ruthlessly downsized, making Swedish death cleaning, a favorite topic, look like a walk in the park.
Last month, before we left for our annual drive to Western Wyoming for a long visit, I did a usual pre-trip cleanout and got rid of bags of clothes, purged stacks of notebooks and mail from my study cabinets, and supervised the emptying of a large closet. As time passes, superfluities become clearer. Items like old athletic equipment surface from the deep. (When did al fresco daughter, almost 22, play lacrosse – middle school?!) Perhaps most striking in these exercises is how much remains.
Below, four thoughtful women tell how they effectively downsized their possessions … and then their homes.
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Art: Cosy Corner by Carl Larsson, 1894
