Alison Minami - The Stuff That Binds

 

 

I grew up in a really nice suburban town. My family, we were like the black sheep of the neighborhood, because the grass was really up to here, always taller than I was. The car in the driveway didn't work, but it sat there for many years. And that was just sort of a preview of what was inside, because inside was a total physical chaos, because my parents were pack rats and they were hoarders. I don't think my mom would make the cut for the show hoarders, but she would be a top contender in their applicant pool. And just some examples, like in her living room, there's a giant shelf that is really designed to go up against a wall, but it just sits in the middle of the room, and she picked it up off the street. There's the old TV that you have to change the channel manually. It doesn't work, but it's still there. And in front of it is the new TV, which is probably from 1990.

 

My mom's the kind of person who will go to the bank and get 10 free calendars, because she can give away nine of them as gifts, even though it says Citibank on them. The really sad thing is they just sit there. They just sit on the table. Every surface is covered with stuff, it's just like unopened mail, the kitchen table, the coffee table, the dining room table.

 

I think it started with my dad, because when I was in middle school, my dad, he started his own business. He turned our house into his home office. He didn't have an organizational system, but he would just write notes on these tiny little pieces of memo paper and he would bring in all his files and his mail, and he would put them in piles all over the house. I wasn't allowed to invite friends over, because there was a self-consciousness about it. It was just mess everywhere. You couldn't even eat at the kitchen table. 

 

I used to try to manage the chaos. I would clean every day. I would clean little corners of the house, but it would always come back and accumulate. And then, I remember thinking, “God, I just can't wait to get the [beep] out of here. I can't wait to get out of this place.” [audience laughter] And I did. I got out of there. I went to college and I went far, far away.

 

Now, my sophomore year in college, my mother calls me up, and she says, "Hi, Alison, do you want a car?" And I say, "What?" And she says, "Your father wants to buy me a car, but I don't need it because I'm moving to Hawaii." [audience laughter] And I say, "Well, mom, why don't you tell him you don't need the car, so that he doesn't spend the money for the car." But you have to understand that my mother is an Asian immigrant. My parents are both Asian. They don't really talk about relationships. They just exist in them. [audience laughter] 

 

And so, my mom was not willing to tell my father that she was leaving him. [audience chuckles] He bought the car. And then, the way that she told him was like a week before she left, she said, "I'm moving to Hawaii. I don't know when I'm coming back. Can you give me a ride to the airport?" [audience laughter] And he did. He gave her a ride to the airport, miraculously. And my mom went. And bless her heart, because she had a very liberating experience. But the one thing she asked me to do for her before she left was to clean her room. And by her room was really my parents’ bedroom, because it was total chaos. It was just like stuff everywhere, clothes, books, just junk. 

 

And so, I honored that request. I came home on college break, and I just cleaned. I spent the whole week cleaning. I didn't talk to my friends. I didn't hang out with my high school friends. The cool thing is when your parents are hoarders, you find some really cool [beep] [audience laughter] I found a really nice vintage dress, circa 1975, that fit me. I found all these cool letters and photographs that really show that maybe your parents had a life and maybe they actually liked each other. My mom's diary, fortunately for her, it was in Japanese, so I couldn't quite crack that code. [audience chuckles] But I would have. 

 

The craziest thing that I found was something underneath the bed. It was so crazy. I didn't know what to do with it. I had to call my mom up and I said, "Mom I just found underneath your bed in a tin can, $8,000 of cash." [audience laughter] And my mom goes, "Oh yeah, that's mine." [audience laughter] She instructs me to go to the bank and deposit the cash into her bank account. And because I had alliances with my mother, I didn't tell my dad about the money because I knew if I did, he would say that it was his. I just listened to her and I took $8,000 of cash in my bag on my back, outside on the street. I'd never done that before. [audience chuckles] I deposited the money for her. I was too stupid to take a cut for myself, [audience chuckles] which I really should have and I would today if it happened again. [audience laughter]

 

And so, the room was awesome. It was like I put a bed skirt on the bed, and I had the fluffed-up pillows, and it was like a class A motel room. There was like 10 feet of space from the wall to the end of the bed. It was unprecedented, gorgeous bedroom. The first thing my dad did when he came home and he saw all that clean open space, is that he started to take out all the little pieces of paper from his pockets, and he went to the kitchen, and he got his files. He used to keep files in, like, ramen boxes, and he just put them in tiny piles all over the bedroom floor. At that moment, my heart just sank. But I didn't say anything, because I don't know why I didn't say anything. I kept cleaning.

 

And the next day I was cleaning the kitchen, and I was throwing out the three-year old mayonnaise, and I was throwing out the Taco Bell sauce packets, and all the takeout paraphernalia, and the plastic bags that were in piles shopping bags in the corner. I remember the moment where I was scrubbing the floor. I was on my hands and knees. My dad was at a higher level than me, because he was seated at the kitchen table. We got into a fight, because I was really upset about the bedroom. And I said, "Dad, I'm doing this for you. I'm doing all this cleaning for you." And in the meanest, coldest voice, he said, "I didn't ask you to do that." 

 

At that time, I was too young and too angry to realize that there was really so much pain behind those words. And so, I just went back to college and I was like, [beep] it. [beep] you.” I didn't think about him, and I didn't call him, and he was all alone. Everybody in his life had left him. And I didn't care. But I've come to realize that your physical space is a reflection of your mental, spiritual, and emotional state. And no matter how much I tried to clean in that house, it was always going to come back, because there was so much tied to it. It was like my parents’ fear, their resentment, their anger, their hatred. And until they were ready to confront that with each other and for themselves, I could never clean up my parents’ mess. Thank you.