My adult child chuckles kindly when I talk about my attempts to arrange my house to my satisfaction. “You’re such a minimalist, Mommy,” they say. I bristle slightly, but do not argue. It’s not worth it.

I’m not really a minimalist, though.

Yes, I have spent the last three years getting rid of things, bags and boxes and piles of things. I have had furniture hauled away, and I have hauled it away myself. I have broken large things down (beds, desks, bookshelves) and put parts of them in the trash, one week at a time, for the Department of Sanitation to fling into the back of their truck. The local donation organization is a regular visitor to my front step. Sometimes I put things out in a “free” box on the sidewalk, and people take away jigsaw puzzles, mugs, books, and all manner of things. The last thing I put out was an immense gold-painted picture frame, and it promptly disappeared into someone’s houses. But I’m not a minimalist.

Yes, I have a basic uniform I wear, and when I look in my closet in the morning all I have to do is take one of my black long-sleeved T-shirts (out of the eight or so) and one of my pairs of jeans (five) plus one of the identical pairs of socks and of underpants, out of the drawers where they are arranged. Yes, I rotate through my few sweaters and my three quilted vests. But I have lots of clothes, more than the minimum. It’s just that I only keep clothes I’ll actually wear.

Yes, when I come back to the house I put everything away, one thing at a time, and stow my tote bag empty and tidy in its place, out of sight except for the things I use regularly. Yes, I periodically go through my cupboards and get rid of food I am not going to eat. There is very little in my small refrigerator aside from cans of seltzer. My bedroom is only for sleeping and for getting dressed. Most of the many cupboards in that bedroom are empty.

Also: My third floor, two rooms and a bathroom, is completely empty. I go up there once a month to run the water and flush the toilet, and that’s it. I don’t need those rooms for anything.

But I am not a minimalist.

No, I am an accumulator, a gatherer, a collector. I have beautiful pens, bottles of pretty ink, and several electronic devices that I stow away when I’m not using them. My coffee machine is lovely. I acquire smooth objects, and places where I can sit comfortably, and I have a fair number of nice containers (tote bags, storage crates, ranks of hooks in the basement, and so on).

But I also collect light–the light from my windows, from my lamps, from my battery-operated candles, and from the Christmas tree in the corner. I gather up air, and beautiful surfaces. What I accumulate most, though, is open space, and a modicum of peace. I’m quite the accumulator. Not a minimalist at all.

And in case you didn’t notice, I had a heck of a lot of stuff to get rid of in the first place.