AN odE To MAriE KoNdo

Ending clutter, which by definition is anything that I consider to be extraneous to an ordered household and mind, is always on my list, but because of a rather gummy combination of procrastination and the desire to do more interesting things, its place on the list is last. Today I found a related inventory among my Facebook notifications designed to help me eliminate some of those objects that are filling up both my home and my mind with … well, junk.

First on the list is “The other side of a pair of lost earrings.”

Now there is something significant. I have lost a lot of earrings, mostly only one of each pair and have now a collection of scatter pins. They don’t take up much room, but they are there in the container with the existing complete pairs. So, when I have time, I’ll sort through the jumble and get rid of them. When I have time.

Then comes “scraps of wrapping paper.” Do other people save ends and pieces of wrapping paper for those small but significant gifts that we never give?

Socks with holes and old Tshirts are on the list. Yes, we have these and, somehow, they never

Ramblings from the empty nest

leave the house. We stash them in bags and hide them in boxes with the idea that they make good dusters. I calculate that, at this moment, we could dust New York state and have a few still unused.

Expired coupons and greeting cards that have no sentimental value are on the list. There is a drawer in the kitchen that is stuffed with the former and several shoe boxes with the latter. Those boxes include greeting cards sent by companies and their representatives full of the institutional sentiment of more sales … but it has gotten to the point of late that I get more of these than I do those that have any true sentimental value. But then I’m thinking that sentiment is sentiment, whether generated by affection or avarice. You get what you can get. So, do I hang on to them?

Then there is “scratched nonstick cookware.” If I got rid of all of my scratched nonstick frying pans, I would have only one I avoid like the plague. I bought this pan at the restaurant supply store in a moment of weakness, thinking that it would give me special, chef-like cooking abilities. I never considered that chefs have other people to wash their pots and this beauty takes forever to clean. Should I get rid of it or the scratched stuff? Along with the disreputable fry pans, the list includes pens that don’t work. I do believe that, besides the two that reside in my purse, all of the others in our house fit into that category. At least it seems that way when I am looking for one to take a phone message. Who wants pens that don’t work?

Logically, tops on the list should be “clothes that don’t fit.” There is a closet full of really nice clothes from five or six years ago that belong to a slimmer me. Realistically, they should go, but hope and a seemingly eternal membership in Weight Watchers have convinced me that, even at this advanced accumulation of birthdays, it is possible to lose enough weight to get into the stylish but too-small apparel. These are my aspirational lode stones, my talismans of weight loss.

I do have a rather large box of cables and wires from old electronic gear. I have no idea what they are for, and no one else in this house does either. But they may be useful. They are a just-incase save.

But not the coffee mugs. There’s a bit of a problem here.

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