A few years ago, when we were still using carved turnips as a form of monetary exchange, I left Edmonton for Calgary, lured by the liberal arts education promise of being taught how to live.
I mean, it’s really all I dreamed about.
As the reality soon fell short of that promise, I began keeping my own record of what I was seeing and experiencing in the classroom of life, mapping this academically unaddressed terra incognito of being with the utmost concentration.
But as my intellectual, creative, and sommelier development began to unfurl, I realized that there was a distinct and important lack in my new life – I was not ever going to be offered my own Netflix series showcasing my inner Marie Kondo multipotentialite. But then again, lolling on the sofa is perhaps not the optimal moment of which to derive a true picture of reality, given my mind wanders like Jews in the desert.
So two days ago, with encouragement from pretty well no one, I thought that since I seemingly have a captive and semi-loyal cyber audience, I would offer up my vast and varied thoughts to you, my unsuspecting readers.
I had no idea that this would animate me with a new sense of purpose.
This would now become both my mission and something to do for a couple of dull Saturday nights. I also hoped this would be of great historical importance. To whom, I’m not sure.
| Now there are some salient core principles involved when undertaking such a fundamental endeavor. Number 1: Ours is a culture that measure our worth by our efficiency, our relatives, and our ability to only have 2 sets of sheets per bed. Anne Dillard said something like – “How we spend our afternoons is how we spend our lives.” And some of our afternoons are spent trying to fold fitted sheets properly. Note: It can’t be done. |
Number 2: There are those who have no instinct for discarding.
We live in a culture where one of the greatest social disgraces is not having enough stuff, so we often form our “opinions” based on the number of ‘Likes’we get from our Facebook posts, or the mutterings of the person in front of us in the coffee shop line-up, without investing the time and thought to come up with our own true feelings.
Yes, I’ve heard all the excuses: Your great aunt thrice-removed gave it to you, your children will need it if they ever deem to move out, you might lose the other four exact same items, it was made for you in summer camp, it will fit when you lose weight, etc, etc, etc.
It’s time to cultivate your right for negative capability. Just say, “No”, and take your God-given poetic license to just move it out.
I mean, once you start overachieving, people expect things from you.
| Number 3: Expect anything tasteful to take a long time. It’s hard to capture something so fundamental, yet so impatiently overlooked, as organizing a closet, yet the myth of the harmonious closet is not a myth. Some might call it the source of our suffering. Thus our present definition of success needs redefining. For example: 1. Is the closet thinned out and clothes colour-blocked? Are there matching hangers? Are there items in there that look like you might send figs in? (I’m not always sarcastic. Sometimes I’m sleeping.) 2. Do you so love everything in it that it almost blows your socks off? |
3. How are the shelves? Is the floor clear of encumbrances? |
4. This one is easy. Does it remind you of sitting in a Ralph Lauren showroom? Or does it look my housekeeping – there appears to have been a struggle. |
5. And the last one. Are items grouped together: skirts together, shirts together, and elastic-waist pants together? |
| Number 4: Presence is far more intimate and rewarding than productivity. Which is why some of my clients want to declutter by giving most of their clutter to me. |
| They would later say that this was to support their mission, but to me, it seemed like a total waste of an solution. |
| I can’t make everyone happy, I’m not a plane ticket. |
| But wait, I’m not finished. Although this blog may now be plummeting like a grouse full of birdshot. There have been times where I walked in off the street and said, “‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry! I seem to be in somebody’s basement!” The inside of the house looked like the work of a miniaturist beaver. A heap of random objects – the raw core of their life. Sometimes it’s all I can do not to run shrieking from the house. And the world starts to divide. There would be all sorts of wild and wonderful things with nary a lacuna: towers of discarded books, lamps wth shades removed, piles of old magazines bound in tormented seclusion, a chair with one arm, shopping bags of bags placed precariously close to a space heater, brown street signs, bad botanical prints, luxurious collection of paper clips, an unopened case of barbecue banana chips, attachments for three vacuums they no longer owned, takeout containers, and things old before they had any right to be. (I have not hesitated to utilize selected facts, while warping personalities and events for my own needs). You can drum up an opinion later. |
So I have morosely accepted the premature demise of my nonexistent TV series and content myself with doing the moral support bit along with a pronounced case of logorrhoea pointing out the obvious, while trying not to think of the millions I would have made.
Besides, I like to play to a packed house.
.these are really great Karen – your creative talent and sense of humor are amazing and sooo entertaining (quite aside from being informative too) . . .keep it coming – we all need a really good laugh these days!!!
SHARON R. WEIR
Good article!
Sheena
Karyn – you are so remarkably talented in so many areas!!!
-Kerri
The most enjoyable emails I receive are these. Thank you for always putting a smile on my face! Sharon C.