So true, so true.
I just read that (the clutter bit) on the blog of the friend of a friend (http://bakednudel.livejournal.com), and I love it.
Some people can live with clutter. Some people thrive with clutter. And– I really believe this– I think that those people are probably Much Smarter than I am.
I am not so smart. No.
But today I got rid of some clutter, and I did so with friends. Our dear friends Paul and Tracey came by to fetch their girls, who spent the morning giggling with Emma Grace in her bedroom. They came out, from time to time, in various dress-up clothes, and they stayed out for some time to enjoy Bill’s brunch waffles. Other than that, we didn’t see much of them.
We convinced Paul and Tracey to linger awhile, and we visited over coffee. And then we discussed the project that Bill and I had planned for the day: cleaning out one– Just One– bookcase in the playroom.
It’s the game shelf, actually. The lower shelves have games and puzzles; the upper shelves hold books we rarely use and yearbooks and scrapbooks and various anthologies I’m saving for when I return to teaching. The books go almost untouched. The games, on the other hand, had become Utterly Disorganized, their boxes collapsed, their pieces drifting down to lower shelves and becoming Lost.
Well, Paul, it seems, loves to organize things and, before we knew it, there we were, taking things off the shelves. In no time at all the shelves were emptied and wiped clean, and soon I had produced a roll of masking tape. And while Paul and Tracey mended boxes, I reorganized and reshelved and one thing led to another. Suddenly– Voila! Two bookcases are newly organized, the puzzles are stacked together, the games are in their boxes, and we have all the pieces for Chutes and Ladders.
And through it all we had great conversation that made the work feel like nothing.
Thank you, Paul and Tracey!!!
I’m full of Life Force tonight, thank you very much.
