THE LIFE-CHANGING MAGIC OF (UN)TIDYING UP

BY AMANDA MCDANEL

Each year the MerriamWebster dictionary updates its volumes by adding new words. During 2020, in particular, many new words (or at least, new meanings for old ones) were added to our vernacular – pod or bubble and social distancing, for example – and when we need new ways to express our current world, it’s the dictionary’s job to track and document that.

Not every word winds up in the dictionary, however – but that doesn’t mean that its use isn’t influential. This past year, in fact, many homebound Americans reflected back to a phrase that made a big splash back in 2015: KonMari or the Marie Kondo method.

In 2014, Marie Kondo wrote The LifeChanging Magic of Tidying Up in which she outlines her process for decluttering your home once and for all. The book became an international sensation, hitting The New York Times bestseller list and inspiring thousands to dump their dresser contents onto their bed, throw three quarters of their clothes away and then fold the remaining ones into tidy dumpling-like packets.

CNN declared her manuscript “One of the Most Influential Books of the Decade.” Being a good consumer of high-quality literature, I purchased it (according to my Amazon.com records) on December 29, 2015, just two months after giving birth to my second daughter. It arrived, and I promptly put it on my nightstand beside the other 13 books I planned to read that month.

To its credit, I do believe that at some point I not only picked it up, but may have even read a few chapters… while doing early morning feedings, while hiding in the bathroom pretending to be showering, and maybe even in the 1.7 seconds between my head hitting the pillow and my eyes drawing their blinds.

The overwhelming thought of washing the clothing, let alone folding it into neat little squares to put away felt completely insurmountable during those early days of motherhood. Hell, if I had even put a clean shirt on or washed my hair in the past five days, I was feeling accomplished.

Add to that a mountain of plastic toys, an overflowing dress-up trunk, a shared bedroom and a too-small house filled with too much love, reading Marie’s book just made me feel “less than” at the time – and like a terrible housekeeper and mother. I heard the petty comments, including “you’ll miss this messy house when they’re gone” or “I can’t sleep when my house isn’t picked up, but not everyone is like that,” and they clouded my mind. I quit Marie.

Then I pulled another worn book out of my stack. It was a red paperback entitled The Evolving Self by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. It had been a reading assignment my junior year of college by my professor of positive psychology, Dr. Germana. While many people can’t remember what their professors looked like, let alone their names, Joe Germana, was a tall bald man who sported tapestry vests and beaded wooden necklaces. He would saunter out of the classroom 15 minutes into a lecture on “theory of expectations” and not return. We would be told to gather on a hill near the main street of campus only to watch him walk down the street, enter Carol Lee Donuts and perch on a stool with a cup of coffee to peer at us. At one point, I believe we had to climb a tree to meet him on a branch and tell him our self-assigned course grade. Picking up the book, I thumbed to Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of flow: a state of concentration and engagement that can be achieved when completing a task that challenges one’s skills to maximize happiness and productivity. Getting into this state requires a sense of absorption into a task so complete that you ignore other cues while doing deep and meaningful work – and whether that means playing on the floor with the children while ignoring the dog hair or listening to their belly laughs while reading a book under a dusty lamp, it’s a way to find order amongst clutter and chaos. This was the life manual I decided to dive into. Yes, a few years later as my infant turned into a toddler and then a preschooler, I would work on sorting the toys, labeling bins and bribing my girls by letting them use the “gobble machine” (a.k.a. the vacuum) to practice Marie’s tidying up. And while we may never “change our lives” through decluttering and organizing, I’m finding peace in our home with yet another 2021 addition to the Merriam-Webster dictionary: hygge.

Hygge: Noun. A quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being.

It’s a quality I’ve managed to embrace in a number of meaningful ways: Vases filled with flowers are set alongside ones filled with rainbow building blocks. Artwork plasters the front of our refrigerator while the dishwasher remains bare. The dining room table is a place for both puzzles and pierogies. There are enough beach towels for everyone, even visiting friends, but they may tumble out of the cabinet when you open it because they aren’t all folded alike. The pantry is always stocked, but you may have to sift through several cereal boxes to find the one you like. The beers are always cold, but not arranged alphabetically. I make my bed every day, but have stopped even bothering with a top sheet on both children’s beds – after all, they’ll become civilized soon enough, why try to tame their wild spirits now?

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