Paras: Clean House

Sunday, July 3, 2011

ONE of my favorite shows on the cable channel Lifestyle is “Clean House”. Any self-respecting housewife, or even a career woman-housewife-single woman home alone, or various configurations thereof, would have watched this show and wished that she’d have the Clean House crew do the makeover on her house.

Few Filipino homes can be described as spic-and-span. There would always be the knickknacks on a corner shelf or a bookshelf crammed with all the detritus of living in these isles. Filipinos are naturally pack rats. Plus they are a sentimental lot. They can’t find it in their hearts to throw away the wedding giveaways their friends/family do love to give away: those ceramic or clay figurines or what-nots that are dust magnets.

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Then there are those who see an old dress that has seen better years and say, ‘vintage’ and so they keep it. Then there are the mothers who are already inundated by a flood of baby clothes and toddler dresses – when the child who owned this is already in grade school – and refuse to be parted with the mountainous pile. "Sayang" is the operative word, especially when the baby things and dresses were bought at the baby Gap and the cute little frilly numbers were bought at the baby Dior shop. These clothes, let me tell you, cost more than a Rajo Laurel off-the-rack cocktail dress. So I don’t condemn these moms who refuse to be parted with the little fashionista’s stash. Who knows, when she’s a mother herself, that her own daughter will inherit the high couture wardrobe.

The return of retro fashion exacerbated the penchant of people to keep old clothes. Vintage shops, which even in First World cities are prevalent, are here to stay. That’s where you go to find original pieces to use for your 25th high school reunion. Or the 60th birthday of your college chum and she dictated “the 60’s” in her LSD-inspired invitation.

Even the picture perfect Ms. Lucy Torres-Gomez is not above keeping odds and ends, a trait inherited from her mother. (Trivia: former CDC president Rufo Colayco is the uncle of Lucy, by virtue of Lucy’s dad being the brother of Rufo’s wife.) Lucy writes in her Phil. Star column that she keeps pieces of string, foam, buttons and other odds and ends, and miraculously, eventually finds a use for them. So does her mother.

I am not that much of a pack rat as my mother was. To this day there are containers where all manner of buttons are kept. She also kept coins which are no longer in use, but will probably fetch a pretty penny in the antique coin shops. Looking through her things, I find belts, buckles, brooches with some stones missing…you get the picture.

I have lately been trying to get organized, specifically to fit all my things in my closets. It’s more difficult than it seems. When I watch Clean House and the owner of the house refuse to part with stuff they no longer use, I find myself shaking my head. But when I started to do some cleaning house myself, I now understand that it is not that simple an exercise. I can’t bear to part ways with my mother’s (who has long passed away) gowns, no matter how super vintage they are. It does not matter that they will be moth eaten before the fashion comes back. Even my own retro clothes, back when mini-minis were normal wear, are still in my closet. My daughter once saw such a skirt and was aghast. Yep, I said, I used to wear that. (It was up to there, but then we wore webbed or patterned stockings.)

Then there are the shoes, and the bags, and the children’s pre-school graduation dress (now an adult), a daughter’s booties that was used in her christening, my Rustan’s Christian Dior dress I wore at another daughter’s christening… the list is endless. Sometimes you find gems, such as dresses that still look new and are still in fashion. And clothes that are still chic – just waiting in the closet until you lose that post-post-post natal fat. (They were bought 20 pounds ago.)
I have compiled several piles of things to give away and to throw away. When the next disaster strikes – and I don’t hope for this — I have clothes ready to donate. Good, serviceable, sometimes unused clothes. And kitchen utensils. And plates and cups and glasses.

One can only keep so much. But I am still keeping my mother’s cocktail dress which she wore to a dance with my father, and we have a picture in the house with them dancing.