With the great luxury of an extended stretch of time at home, we’re in a patch where life maintenance can command some serious attention. We’ve been productive and are making headway on items that are on a “house to do” list from.... wait for it: 2006. That seems to have been the time period in which a whole range of ongoing efforts were disrupted, from the house-in-progress stuff to the book to a personal amusement project I dug out the other day, which has been buried since that same year. Since my hope, belief and plan is that the book will be out of my life by summer, I’m anticipating reviving that project this summer and I’m having great fun planning for it. My fingers are crossed that this will come to pass.
As is so often the case, this particular binge of progress was rooted in a minor setback: a sick dog left us with a carpet we could not get de-odorized, so we sent the rugs out for cleaning. That got the ball rolling. We got blinds ordered to replace the ones we installed in the year we moved into this house (1982)--they get installed Monday--and rolled on to other things we’ve known were hanging out there, including replacing some cracked storm windows that have been broken for a long, long time. The progress feels great and is fueling more as we go. I’m not sure how long this roll can last, as I go back on the road again soon, and that consumes energy and requires a lot of rest when I land back in our home haven again. As part of the rested-up experience, we went out to dinner the other night, something I don’t attempt much any more given the noise and sight overload that usually imposes--and since then, I’ve mostly been in bed. Fortunately, it’s possible to plan and order stuff while prone!
In the thinking and staging process, I’m once again confronting the quantities of stuff I’ve saved over the years and not managed to cull enough (ok, or hardly at all). In general, as a visually-focused person, there’s lots of “stuff” in our environment because I take pleasure in having it around. There are items we never use yet have on display because they’re beautiful or soul-filling. Lots of it. And, I added some of Michael’s childhood electric trains the other day because they’re so cool to look at.
My desk has massive quantities of paper sitting on it because things I don’t see might as well not exist: I’ll never do anything about them. At the same time, if the array isn’t reasonably orderly, it gets on my nerves and becomes irritating. Of course, my stuff always looks neater to me than that of other people (poor Michael) because I understand its order, even if it’s not apparent to others on first glance. This, I admit, comes perilously close to a double standard, and would be, if I didn’t have such good reasons for my own accumulations. (I can almost say that with a straight face.)
If I didn’t have such a hard time parting with items that are surplus to requirements, this would all be more manageable. The accumulation isn’t trivial. Getting rid of garbage and redundant things is no problem: it’s the stuff that isn’t being used that might be useful some day, especially if it’s “perfectly good.” Throwing out items that could be used by others is out of the question for both of us, and finding good homes for them takes time and energy. Plus, we have a lot of surplus storage space in this house, which leads to a perfect storm of too muchness.
While in theory, I’m in favor of clutter-abatement, the practice is challenging. I’m sure there’s a deep emotional reason for it, and I’m just not that interested in delving into what it is. Generally, I keep the worst of my tendencies in check on work-related projects by (purposefully) affiliating with people who are reflexive pitcher-outers, so there’s usually a reasonable balance in that arena. Everything else, not so much.
Sigh. That’s the next challenge, except for now, I’m going to savor the progress made on these much-needed projects. Cheers.
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