The comfort of things

I have a lot of stuff in my office. Even by the standards of the creatives in the cubicles up the way, there’s an inordinate amount of clutter and colour jostling for the attention of anybody who happens to pass by on the way to collect their printouts or send a fax.

There are books, paintings, designer Lipton tea tins, wire and bead art. Pride of place goes to my sizeable Happy Meal toy collection, the result of a habit started when I worked on the Wimpy account. Some of the toys I’ve collected are lined up on my windowsill, Presticked in place, so that Donkey from Shrek grins toothily at Nemo, who smiles beatifically at Snoopy. My favourite is probably Mr Incredible, who poses at the top of my bookcase, showing off his biceps in front of my copies of Brands & Branding.

Everyone else in the department keeps stuff to a minimum; their desks are gleaming acreages of varnished pine. Me, I like clutter, which is probably a good thing given that I am extravagantly untidy, in complete contrast to what astrologers say about Virgos.

Why do I feel the need to be surrounded by so much stuff when the others do not? I like to think that it may be due in part to the fact that I’m creative in a way that a lot of strategists are usually not, so that even if I don’t write copy or come up with concepts as creative directors do, I’m a published author as well as a cartoonist, illustrator and artist and, given half the chance (and cojones of sufficient size), I’d add “stand-up comedian” to that list.

The things in my office speak on my behalf when I am not there. They’re a presence in my absence. Importantly, they signal that I am not quite the same as everybody else, that I’m ever so slightly eccentric (but in an entertaining way). Strategists are supposed to spend their days compiling Powerpoint presentations and thinking about things like campaign propositions and brand essences, and compared to a lot of others who work in advertising, we’re considered to be ever so slightly anal. Happy Meal collections and framed examples of my lipstick paintings are a reminder that I do not fit neatly into any notions of what I should or should not be.

Things are comforting: they anchor you when you need anchoring. When I first moved to Sydney, I felt an intense desire to divest myself of stuff, to rid myself of what I considered unnecessary. As time went on, however, I found myself bringing home screaming pink scatter cushions from Ikea and books bought at talks given by famous authors at the local library, not because I needed them, but because I wanted things around me. Things came to encapsulate both my presence in this place and also the passing of time, because they were — quite literally — the souvenirs of where I had been and what I had done.

When I moved back to South Africa, my things in Australia became a problem I needed to get rid of (a task that ultimately fell to my ex-husband) but in the months I spent there they were an extension of my self when it felt as if I — the authentic me — was in danger of vanishing into the noisy indifference of a city where I was nobody and nothing.

So when I walk into my office in the morning, and see my things, I feel a little more centered, a little less scattered. A little more like I belong, somewhere.