Category Archives: clutter

May29

Tchotchke City here we come…

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The year was 1966. My Mom took me to Macy’s in New York for school clothes and we bought Betsey Johnson paper mini-dresses…I was obsessed. I asked her if she could paint matching flowers on my face for the first day of junior high. About halfway through the day the Vice-Principal grabbed me by the arm with a stern look and nodded me toward his office. I was told in no uncertain terms to walk home for lunch and return without that stuff on my face.

My Mother was quite surprised when I walked in the door just after noon. She wasn’t expecting me. When I told her why I was home she was livid. She marched me right back into the Principal’s office – but I wasn’t in trouble – HE WAS! I wore painted flowers on my cheek every day after that. It wouldn’t be long before I asked my Dad to contribute: he gave up a pair of black socks so I could cut them into strips and hem the edges and my friends and I would wear them around our right upper arms. Black armbands signified our protest of the Vietnam war. My life as troublemaker had begun…and my wild parents sanctioned it.

Gil-Scott Heron told us the revolution would not be televised. Bess Myserson told Mrs. Smith that she didn’t have to buy war. And Betsey Johnson gave us fuchsia pink and lime green mini skirts. I was born this way, baby!

Suffice it to say Betsey Johnson has been a personal icon for over five decades now. I was in my 20’s when a roller skating friend came over to help bake cookies and declared my home “Tchotchke City.” Apparently there was a lot of stuff. Once again, light years ahead of my time (okay, a couple decades) I was a self proclaimed maximalist. I loved it when McDonalds started making Happy Meals. I collected the toys and proudly lined them up on the kitchen windowsill. Like my parents before me, I was a child with a child…in case I needed an excuse.

Betsey did not need an excuse. She never lost her playful spirit through codependency, as far as I can guess, because she didn’t have to. It was another influence, Virginia Woolf, who so wisely said, “Money justifies what would otherwise be frivolous.” I was young and my parents were still quite affluent and I had no idea of hardship. Not consciously, anyway. Life was still a lot of fun.

When did life become not-so-fun? I do know the answer to that question. I would never go back. That’s a saga that would span more than fifty years (so far,) and I am only now beginning to unravel the complexities of my life. I will say, if I have anything worthwhile to share as we venture forth, it’s that we must learn to live in the contradictions.

Last week I asked you to join me on a little adventure, to explore the connection between fashion, storytelling and sleep…and then I had a bout with illness. Seems I have to factor that in to my enthusiastic (and often unrealistic) time goals. Okay. But I am fascinated by the idea of what motivates us, how we treasure our creative spark as long as we live, and why. Do we lose our mojo because we get old, or do we get old because we lose our mojo? You don’t need me to answer that, do you?!

Let’s change sleep to rest and re-visit the concept of rest as conscious resistance, as withdrawal from the culture and our learned dissatisfaction. Let’s re-frame some of this curious exploration and learn to live in the questions – but let’s keep going. We owe this to ourselves, to get to the healing. Let’s honor that inner child and take her out to play…

Betsey Johnson Earrings: https://amzn.to/3KriCFG

May5

You Can Have a Re-membering…

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“Easy is right, and right is easy.” – Lao Tzu

To say that I’ve been in a funk lately would be quite an understatement. My beloved family is really struggling, facing homelessness again. I’m heartbroken, and I can’t help. My friends are having a hard time, juggling hardship and trauma far more elegantly than they realize. My cat has been ill and I wasn’t sure he was going to make it a couple of nights ago (he has improved now.) My bank account just seems to be empty all the time no matter how hard I try to get ahead of the deficits. Unforeseen expenses come out of nowhere. I haven’t felt well, having another flare-up of chronic Lyme and wondering if I will ever feel alright again. I have had no energy.

About 2am last night something shifted, through no direct effort of my own. I have been meditating and praying more consistently (I haven’t been able to do much else) and doing my little magical feng shui “cures”…getting rid of yet more clutter and cleaning in small spurts as I learn to pace myself and accept that perhaps this may be the way it is now.

The cat woke me at 2. He let out a big sneeze and then crawled right up and stood on my chest staring at me. I reached over and turned the light on. Immediately I knew something was different; he was talking to me. He was letting me know to pay attention. He was better. I was better. The damp, mouldy old fog of fear and desperation had lifted. It was that experience you have when you feel so much better that you suddenly realize how far off you’d been.

What if…what if we just allow things to be easier? What if we re-member ourselves? What if we take the easy way out because EASY IS RIGHT…and right is easy? Have I been unconsciously making things harder than they needed to be? The circumstances haven’t changed, not yet at least, and they are still difficult. But FEAR makes everything harder – in fact, it makes things impossible. From fear I can’t see creative solutions to anything. From fear there is no hope of improvement, everything will go downhill from here. Sorrow has overwhelmed every cell of my being.

And how many times have I said you don’t need to figure it all out? You don’t need to understand what this is for. You just need to have ONE PERCENT more curiosity than fear…you just have to accept the POSSIBILITY that there is LIFE at the end of this tunnel.

Jan6

Maximize That Weirdo Space…

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Several posts ago now I promised you help with decluttering. I’m reneging…I cannot get interested in this topic here. Buuuuhhh-lah. So here is a weekend bonus: Caroline Winkler has got us covered. There are a few tips here, and I will also offer this thought: don’t think about organization. In my experience this takes care of itself when you declutter. Now I happen to love clutter. CONTAINED clutter. This is how you visually calm your interior: you contain the clutter in, you know, containers. Trays are my friend; never too many trays…and baskets, and when all else fails, decorative boxes. Hooks everywhere. Wrangle all the tiny little detritus of life into some semblance of order by categorizing it, like with like.

Here is Caroline Winkler to let you know what you’re doing wrong…hahhaaaaaaaa….and yes, I love my Magic Eraser. It’s probably full of chemicals and not environmentally friendly – but it’s MENTALLY friendly. You will have to pry the Magic Eraser out of my cold, dead hands.

Once again for the people in the back:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=xRGXi1aTh1w%3Fsi%3D7wJJblBcCzHRhe8v
Dec15

The Perpetual Arranger

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“…you are the perpetual arranger,” said a childhood friend one day many years ago. It is true that I am constantly changing the furniture layout, the menagerie of items, the plants indoors and out, the accoutrement of life. C’mon – you do it, too, whether you are conscious of it or not. We are the curators of our own space. It is a thankless struggle when we are raising children, but it is innate. Now in my later years it is an act of pure delight. Don’t put that there! That goes over here…see?!

My darling mother used to say, “I’m just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.” How many times I’d been astonished and befuddled by how she managed a big house full of five children (six if you count my father, who certainly qualified.) We would laugh, but I always had the same reply: “It matters, Mom. The arrangement of the deck chairs matter as long as we’re standing here on deck.”

A friend recently confided that her mother thinks her house is cluttered. I’ve been told that about my homes since my early 20’s. But let me tell you something about my friend’s house. The house itself is beautiful, but there is a less apparent component: I walk in and I FEEL an energy shift. She arranges her home with INTENTION. Like myself, she believes her home is her sanctuary; a living altar. I’ve already asked her if I may come film a short video for the blog after the holidays. I’d like to investigate this process with several people whose homes I admire for different reasons.

In design terms, we are maximalists. I am just as disheveled by clutter as anyone, but clutter is not useful nor attractive. And there are ways to live with the belongings you love without them becoming visual clutter. There are specific ways to do that, and we will explore those here in the coming weeks.

The internet is – pardon me – cluttered – with videos about clutter. Believe me, I’ve watched them discerningly. I’ve read the books (glad to share my favorite) and yes, clutter is a symptom of PTSD. It is both indicative of and perpetuates mental unrest. But most of the approaches I have found fall short of long term solutions; they address the symptom rather than the cause. Have we not learned better yet? We’re seeing the manifestation of this in our health care system. Yes, recognizing a problem is the beginning of finding a cure. We’ve got this.

I love my stuff. I love my home. AND, I love my health, mentally and physically. Health is a lifelong goal I will not compromise (shall we talk boundaries here yet?!) The goal is also beauty, inside and out. Health and beauty are two sides of the same coin. Beauty is a sacred affirmation to our spirit, to God, that we are thankful for the grace in our lives. We are paying attention. We are outgrowing survival mode. We are committed to life. Can I get a witness?!

But beauty is entirely personal. AND, I insist – NOT based on economics. You can live a beautiful life in a beautiful place with or without money. Stick with me and I’ll prove it. (I’ve made some pretty cool decorations out of the plastic netting the onions came in.)

What are your seven favorite things at home?

“Nothing is interesting unless it is personal.” – Billy Baldwin