Trouble with a Wink

I came across this article the other day “Artists as Hoarders” and was immediately on high alert. Oy vey was my reaction — just what a declutterer shouldn’t see — the all-time best excuse for saving things is that you’ll make something else with it. That it’s true purpose will one day be revealed. That the object will somehow “speak” to you — a phrase in and of itself worthy of further investigation. And, of course, this article showcases some great artists for whom it all did, including one of my favorites, Louise Bourgeois.

Yet. I have a friend whose husband is a hoarder and his perennial excuse is that the object’s utility will one day be revealed. While they save for this shaft of light to one day beam down from the heavens and reveal the thing’s true purpose, of course, they are losing square footage inside their house. I can see it. They’re slowly being bricked in as the perimeter of each room has a two or three foot layer of stuff closing them in.

One day my son, probably then age five, momentarily stunned me when he offered as an excuse to not throw something else that “we could make art from it!” I was stopped cold — torn between cheering for this statement and admitting a twinge of pride that he would want to upcycle something destined for the trash can for a higher purpose, slightly worried that there was a genetic component to his impulse to save things, and also a little confused as to handle this lesson. I’m not sure what, that moment, I did. But I will say the “save it for future art projects” is one of the tougher moments to navigate — both for my child, and for myself still.

My Kingdom for a Clear Surface

We’re having some work done at our house, so my husband finally had to clear out his side of the bed. I wish I had a handy “before” pic to post (somewhere, I do), but normally this narrow space is a treacherous labyrinth of two overflowing hampers, piles of book bags, books, and debris, undiscarded shoe boxes, and who knows what else. Probably at least $5.00 in change, a handful of crumpled receipts, used Kleenex, and the discards of his day’s pockets.

And, it’s disgusting. Flat out disgusting. It’s the detritus of someone who is going to bed so exhausted the only real goal is to get under the covers as quickly as possible and lie prone. I sympathize with that. I really do. And I’m not always one to hang up my own clothes, in part because access to my closet is blocked by my own stacks of books, boxes, and other kinds of debris. But I will say that I always stack or fold my clothes nightly, or, at minimum, drape my clothes so they can, as I remember hearing Martha Stewart once say was important, air out nightly.

The shock when I saw this clean, clear space was significant. I burst out in a yelp. We had to similarly clear out my son’s room so the workpeople could have access to the part of the wall they needed and when he saw the clear space he proclaimed, “it’s like a new room!” and was deeply excited. I was thrilled for his excitement and hope it will make an impression, and then, ideally, a habit he might want to maintain. Of course, the problem is that another room is now full of the clear Target-bought boxes we used to store all of his toys and things. And across the room in our bedroom are the overflowing hampers and other stacks, not gone, but just displaced.

I realize my only point is the impact and visual value of seeing a clean, clear space where chaos and filth used to be. How amazing it is to me — how soothing, inviting, and welcome. How I have reflected a zillion times on how our bedroom — and particularly the immediate area around the bed — will NEVER lead to a peaceful, serene, calm environment as we go to sleep on a small raft above what feels like a sea of clutter, chaos, and (as it reveals itself by moving things around) tails and trails of dust.

It horrifies me on some level that I live with this. It makes me feel far less loving and generous to my husband when I see that none of this affects him — even to the point that he doesn’t seem to see this mess. I’ll let contrast — for today at least — be our guide or marker for what CAN be achieved. But only if we make a conscious effort, deal with the piles just displaced across the room, and frankly, perhaps the biggest thing of all — really SEE how else the room could look, the feeling it could give, the effect it might have on our waking and sleeping lives. I’ll hope this all sinks in.

A clean, clear space — a #@$%&* miracle!

Trying Again

It’s been a tough night… too little sleep and workpeople at our home early this morning — they’ll be here all week installing a minisplit unit. I also exercised late at night, which I don’t usually do, and somehow feel like it’s taken a toll on me this morning, some kind of exhaustion hangover.

But I’m thinking about energy — not just physical, but mental and emotional, and the idea that ideas hold energy, just like unfinished business does. Way back when I lived in NYC and took an actual decluttering class the instructor talked about helping someone go through her old belongings and starting to feel sick. She realized finally that there was energy trapped in the discarded belongings and it was affecting her. There are many ways to interpret her comment — maybe there was dust or mold spores in the neglected things that were (invisibly) flying up at her and that’s why she was affected. Maybe there was a story (that she didn’t reveal to us) that was sinking in on an emotional level — perhaps these were the belongings of an ex, whether living or not?

I believe in the idea that things hold power — how so physically is something I’d love to explore — but so much of what has made Marie Kondo appealing to me has to do with an innate response to this animating concept that houses and the things in them are alive or vibrating with their own frequency. This is a wind up to say I’d want to think more about the energy of my house, the energy exchanges in my day. How commitment to an idea is a casting of energy into it — and the idea of keeping the idea alive and growing takes more cultivation. Knowing that a book idea, for example, lives in a stagnant pile of papers on my desk isn’t a way to keep the idea alive.

Can It Be?

Here I am, several years later.  It’s hard to know where to pick up, but I’ll just dive right in.  In brief, the house is a mess! Yes, still a cluttered mess.  And I’m still grappling anew with what it means to live like this.  I feel certain that it means something — besides the fact that I’m busy — and I’d love to use the space of this blog to figure out what that is.

I went to a seminar a few months ago on financial planning.  The woman leading it had a spiritual bent and wanted participants to think about money as an exchange of energy — something I’m still mulling.  She suggested our first step to financial clarity was to declutter our homes.  I laughed (to myself) about this idea — but, as I’ve long pondered how “space” reverberates — externally and internally to who we are, am certain there is a grain of truth beneath it all.

Someone in the group made a joke about a someone she knew who “Marie Kondo’d” her house and ended up divorcing her husband, decluttering him. right out the door as no longer bringing joy.  This was echoed by someone else who had heard a similar story.  The facilitator seemed to think it made sense, “they figured out where the stress was coming from” was her point.

I’ve “joked” for a long time that I want to declutter the whole house and then make a decision about my marriage.  I’m not sure how seriously I mean that, or in what way — but in the almost twelve years I’ve been married there is no question that the mess, clutter, and outright filth that at times we’ve lived within has taken a huge toll.  I once looked for a picture of Oscar and Felix to accompany a blog post — telling you something about me generationally, but also about the mismatch in needs and “clutter vision” between my husband and myself.  I also wonder what it’s meant for my career as well as my emotional health to live like this — in many ways capitulating my needs to achieve some kind of “mean” between our mismatched styles.  In this blog, I’d like to further explore what this has meant, might still be, and my own thoughts about the process.

Priceless

Having that post-trip-look-with-fresh-eyes feeling and have to admit, not loving what I see! After spending over a week in my parents lovely, well-decorated, uncluttered, and might I add, CLEAN (and I didn’t have to clean it) house it’s hard to come back to our grad student-esque decor and filthy floors. Just hard.

But, the corollary to all of this, of course, is that my parents’ place isn’t cluttered with our belongings, we stayed in a pristine guest room, and it was a treat of a week in so many ways. More, in fact, than I can really contain here. But one, again, is the feeling of being relieved of cooking, cleaning, and all other chores, although I was more than glad to help out as I could. Makes me realize, again, to still be able to feel so well cared for so late into my mid-life is a privilege and a blessing, and not one to ever take for granted.

On a lighter note, however, came across these two links today and I am in LOVE with both of them! Something about the wry irony involved, something about realizing others feel as I do, (particularly about envying Anthropologie’s whole unattainable aesthetic), and something about the humor is feeling GREAT to me right now.

See what you think, but this is just what I needed to counter my return-home-our-place-is-a-mess blues right now.

http://fuckyournoguchicoffeetable.tumblr.com

http://lizgalvao.tumblr.com/post/30461401480/lets-make-fun-of-anthropologie-furniture

Sleep Hygiene

 

Writing in some haste, mainly because I can tell my attention is half there right now.  I’m inserting this partly as an exercise putting video in again, and partly because I like hearing people talk more explicitly about sleep. As for Marie Forleo, I’m intrigued, but suspicious about internet charlatans, as some seem to think she is.  As for Arianna Huffington, don’t get me started on her “write for me as a volunteer and I’ll call it an honor.”  Nevermind I bristle at ever taking advice from people whose class and wealth mean realities that are far, far different from mine.
But what strikes a chord is that I don’t think I can keep living at this level of sleep deprivation.  I’d love to buy a FitBit but can’t justify the cost, nevermind don’t think I need a device to tell me that I’m sleep-deprived, although, perhaps not unlike this blog, I also respond to the idea of accountability and mirroring back where I’m at, which might make it worth it.  But the gist of it all is that the pace at which we’ve been living is unsustainable.  I had a bout of shingles over a year ago and thought it was likely due to exhaustion.  A kind of low-grade depression is dogging us all right now and I think likely due to sleep deprivation.  Pushing ourselves at night to work when it’s counterproductive and gets us both to bed later each night so that we start the day with a sense of exhaustion has become a ridiculous cycle we can’t seem to break.

How to change any of this seems impossible, however.  More help by day is probably the best answer.  Give up on my goals, work, ideas, that depresses me further.  I really don’t know seems to be the roadblock I hit, often enough, just as I stay stuck in this health-deteriorating, dangerous even, counterproductive habit.  But hearing all the studies about the negative effects of lack of sleep is a good reminder, and the threat of a return of shingles (as I fear now) is a strong goad.  Something else is behind it I think — a stubborness, a resistance, a desire to, as Marie says in video, power through and believe that’s a positive trait.  I wish I could unblock/solve what knots this so fiercely for me… I really do.

Make it a priority for a solid month and see if I feel so differently it’s worth it?  Reward system?  I’m not sure what’s at heart, but all I do know, is it’s a habit which is more and more worrisome, detrimental, and even shameful to me as I get older.

 

Back to Myself

Again, long-neglected little blog… but coming back here with a different sense of purpose.  I’ll spare the catch-up mea culpas, but comment that one thing that’s drawn me back was watching (for the third time, happily) the astounding documentary, Lost in Living, by director Mary Trunk.  The film is so impactful on many levels, but most salient here are two things that stuck with me this past week. One was featured subject Caren McCabe speaking about falling into a “little well of despair” (or was it a “pit”?) about having a home that never looks clean and a “bathroom that smells like a public urinal.”  McCabe is a visual artist, plus film editor, and she strikes me as someone who is sensitive to aesthetics, environment, and a sense of home needing to be a creative, harmonious space.  In fact, at one point (pre-baby) she talks about a need for order and structure as she decides how she’ll organize her yet-to-be born daughter’s clothing in a drawer.

Post-baby, knee-deep in the (literal and otherwise) chaos, she’s seen rifling through the same dresser looking for a pair of socks. “Any suggestions?” she says to the camera, with both humor and poignancy.  It’s clear how taxing caring for a young child is for her, how much disruption takes a toll, how loss of an environment she wants to create chews away, despite her obvious love for her daughter.

Another point that was striking to me was McCabe’s comment that during this time of caring for a young child “she’s never alone, but she’s lonely.”  She says it both plainly and plaintively, (“this is a lonely time”) and I so relate to that.  When she starts vlogging, (rather than making art on the page) she mentions that perhaps this is, in part, an attempt to witness herself due to the gap that’s opened up between herself and her best friend (also featured in the film) and the lack of time and connection that having kids has meant in terms of their deep friendship.

To witness oneself seems a curious phrase, but I get it.  At least I think I do.  In part, I think it’s what I’m trying to do here; it’s what we always do with diaries.  I share her sense of loneliness, of project(s) seen and unseen, the sense of my work as important and unimportant, confusingly valued and praised and utterly unvalued at the same time (usually through the always confusing vale of lucre).  Perhaps writing this out is a way of witnessing this time —  a lonely time — most certainly for me, busy as I am, always accompanied as I am, never alone as I also am, deep within my heart.

Your House… On a Diet

Dearest Blog,  I’ve neglected you…! But not out of desire to do so… nay, in fact, I’ve had a thousand ideas for blog posts and have bookmarked some of them for the future, but in the moment, I’m back in that frenzy that I dislike so much.  The house is on a crash diet due to the Bean’s birthday party tomorrow.  The good news?  We’re getting the place looking good… which feels nice, of course.  The bad?  It’s exhausting, it brings up the shame I feel around being disorganized, unclean (in certain ways), and the deep desire I have to live in one of those magazine-layout-Martha-Stewart living rooms, knowing all the while, the furniture has been styled to perfection, nevermind the photo airbrushed to within an inch of its (false) life.

But, still… is it like the media stereotypes I deplore with unrealistic models that is driving my desires now?  Something to think about.

I’ll try to bask in the glow of the newly artfully arranged house and try not to weep as I go looking a day or so later for all the stuff that’s been literally swept not under the rug, but hidden into drawers.

Meanwhile, happy birthday sweet Bean! You’ve brought more joy into my life than I could ever have know.

This article leaves me a little bit conflicted….

On one hand, yes, I get it… I like the inspiration that comes with having touchstones out, such as favorite objets, important papers, and of course, stacks of books!  But, on the other hand, I don’t need more fuel to keep thinking it’s okay to tip over into what becomes disorganized chaos.  Perhaps it’s always a fine line…?

Holy Days

Brief post as it’s a Jewish holiday and I’m trying to stay offline, but I couldn’t help but be struck, as I tidied (not the same as decluttering) but strove to make some order to get ready for the holiday how, again, spaces enhance or inhibit celebrations/observations.  It doesn’t seem right to sit down to a holiday dinner in the midst of a mess.  And the clearing, cleaning in service of getting into a more altered state or attentive mood felt good to me, justified, no doubt, by the holiday’s importance in my mind.  If only I could bring that sense of stake to the everyday in our lives… but I felt it for today, and realized, again, how space/mood/activity all intertwine.