Early Spring Cleaning February 17, 2011

I think my instincts are turning toward, or pulling me back towards, Beauty.

I just made a very simple supper snack – pear with cheese, but it was clear that the BLUE plate would be so much more striking against the creamy colors than the yellow one with lemons printed on it – so I yielded to the impulse, and oh how true that is.  I found myself laying the pears out in a fan pattern around the perimeter, with the three cheese slices forming an echo along the bottom. Then it seemed to need something… pecans! In the middle!

Is it food or art?

Who cares?

When I eat it, I will become it. Its beauty will nourish me inside as it does now through my eyes. My whole life could become this delicious feast of moments.

I am so drawn to this idea.

I’ve been taking inventory.

Paring down.

Over the past two days, it looked like a tornado hit in here as I hauled the couch to the other side of the room and deconstructed my bookshelves.

Like they do in Bali, I took every one down off their shelves, and dusted the shelves. Then I chose each book deliberately to either go back to be used and loved by me for some specific purpose or just because I value it or want to read it; or to be given away to either a certain friend or to the bookstore, thrift shop, or laundromat to find their new lovers.  I honor them for the knowledge and insights they contain. And some, although I’m sooo drawn to them, I know I will not be reading soon – so out they go too. This appreciative yet unattached gratitude feels good.

And the funny thing is, even though I’ve collected over ten bags full to give away, every shelf is still completely packed. How did that happen? Where were all those books before?

I also had the wild hair idea to shelve them according to color, and damn the subjects… this is the yellow shelf.  But stopped myself, thinking someone might actually ask me for a book, which would be embarrassing when I couldn’t find it for the life of me  (unlike before, where I could unerringly point to every blasted one, however buried.)

Finally, I sharpened all my knives.

It’s like I’m preparing all my tools – but for what?

For the future journeys/adventure ahead, of course.

Leaf buds will open soon.

Packrattiness January 25, 2011

What is optimal packrattiness?

How much should we keep ‘just in case,’ like farmers and ranchers do, old rolls of barbed wire and bits of cloth and car parts and bread twisty-ties that might indeed come in handy some day? And how much is just junk, unnecessarily sucking up our life-energy with the need to dust and organize and find again in the piles? Then if we can manage to get it out of our immediate space, what to do with it – get rid of it altogether (thus virtually ensuring the need for it the very next day) or store it interminably? I’m haunted by the words of simplification guru Brooks Palmer, who calls storage rentals “clutter alimony.”

Well, I want to report that I feel inordinately pleased with my level of packrattiness this week. And it’s led to a tip that might come in handy for you too.

I’ve been cleaning house. My downfall is books. I took out 10 full boxes from my 470-sq-ft cottage; can you believe it?! I look at the shelves and the weird thing is, they are still full. So where had those 10 boxes full been???

Some things are hard to let go of. For example, the hat that I wore while traveling in Bali and then hand-carried on the planes and buses and shuttles and by foot all the way home. It’s very cool – triangular in shape, cleverly made of several layers of perfectly cut palm thatch, edged with spiral wire, and lavishly painted with Balinese deities.  And I’ve had it for ten years, rarely wearing it because let’s face it, how often does one work in rice paddies in northern California? But it is too beat up to donate, and how can one throw such a thing away?

Well, I was about to. This week.  In fact, I even got it into the outside garbage can.

Then inspiration struck. I hauled it back out again: I knew what to use it for.

My intention was for the hat to protect the birdseed from getting wet and soggy when it rains, as the existing feeder’s roof is woefully inadequate for that task. The Balinese topper also seems to have the nice unintended side effect of preventing easy squirrel access.

It was hard to let the hat go. I found it far more satisfying to find a new use for it, even one that involved taking a knife to it and further, virtually ensures its gradual decay. But that’s better than unceremoniously dumping it into the trash. It seemed insulting to throw it out. Now it will have a noble death in the service of its intended purpose, albeit for birds instead of people. I doubt the fronds will care which species it serves.

So this is my new packrattitude:  either (1) give the stuff you’re not using to someone who will, or (2) keep it till you can think of some weird new use for it, then let it go to that.