Sunday, August 05, 2007

Master Plan

Another 12 days and honestly, it's more of the same. I'm cleaning, working, mothering, cleaning, teaching, wishing I wasn't working, mothering, cleaning, cleaning, gardening, praying for rain that never comes, cleaning, more dishes to wash??, resting, sleeping, not sleeping, and so on and so on and so on.

Really, it's nothing particularly exciting to report.

Like most major cleaning projects it is constant step-forward, step-backwards proposition. You just pray every day that the forward steps will at least equal and hopefully outnumber the backwards steps. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. The trick is, on the losing days, to adequately convince yourself that setbacks happen, and that battles and wars are two different things. I guess it means that sometimes it's the Civil War and sometimes it's the War of Northern Aggression. Fiddle-dee-dee.

I don't really know why 1. I'm so gung-ho on cleaning this summer, and, 2. Why I'm actually making progress. Mensch declared I was nesting which, while it was an interesting theory, I rejected out of hand, because I always associate the word nesting with other things which ARE NOT HAPPENING, THANK YOU.

But the nest (such that it is) is slowly but surely ridding itself of clutter and noise and confusion. And as I clean I find little treasures, AKA stuff I have forgotten I ever had. On the one hand, it makes me angry that I've been so neglectful over the years, but on the other hand, it's exciting to discover something all over again.

I'd like to say that this massive project was accompanied by any sort of master plan. It didn't. I just knew the time was right to sort and toss and clean and organize. And so what if I don't have a master plan? All I know is with every paper filed, shredded or recycled, I am one step closer. Getting rid of clutter is downright empowering. My house is happier, my family is happier and I'm happier. Maybe that's plan enough.


Everything changed
the day she figured out
there was exactly enough time
for the important things in her life.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

hmm, maybe it is contagious...the nesting thing, I mean. And I agree with Mensch - for me, nesting is puttering around in your own space by yourself on your own time and own agenda. Been doing a lot of that this summer too. And liking it.
the boy