Fall Cleaning

I have some stiff muscles begrudging movement this morning.  That’s because I had the brilliant notion yesterday afternoon to completely disassemble and rearrange my bedroom.  Actually, it’s a project I tackle at least annually.  A seasonal cleaning… and, if I’m successful, purging.

The dissatisfaction of furniture arrangement usually comes when my head is full of too many thoughts.  It’s rather like figuring out a puzzle and finding the best configuration of furniture helps me to figure out an arrangement of the ideas in my head.  Especially when it is a removal of dust and clutter.

Man, I have so much clutter.  I am not as passionate about shopping or the acquisition of things as some people I know.  But I still manage to possess a great deal of stuff.  Random… crap.  I don’t do theater as much these days, but I still have so many odd tchotchkes from productions in which I partook on and off stage.  Paper.  So much damn paper.  Clothes that I never wear… that I keep because someday I’ll fit into them again… or I wore them at a time in my life I want to remember even if I don’t really want to be seen in that outfit right now.  Books.  I have a lot of books.  Bags and purses.  Skin products.  Stuffed animals (because I’m in my 30’s and act like it).  Paper.  Did I mention paper?  Yeah, I have a lot of that.

Well, I’m happy to say I had a successful purge of the clothing department.  Three garbage bags full of clothes I don’t ever wear are sitting at the back of my car, as well as a few pairs of shoes.  I threw out old shoes – even my… sigh… brown Sauconys with treads worn to smooth rubber and stains from my London walks (seven year old sneakers I can’t wear because they are falling apart).  I can close my drawers now.  I have a lot of empty hangers. 

But after the movement of furniture and cleaning of dust bunnies from each and every corner, I lost my steam.  I still have to sift through the book collection.  I have to.  Some I just simply won’t ever read again.  There is no need to hold onto them.  I need to go through the paper.  I don’t think any accounting requires me to hold onto billing statements or receipts for tires from my Escort. 

I still have too much stuff.  I hold onto things that really… have incidental value.  Much less value than those sneakers I forced myself to put out in the blue bin this morning.  So maybe this late Sunday afternoon project is actually going to take me a week.

But this morning I woke with a different view of the world.  It’s the same room, but my eyes open to a different perspective.  I see the windows and my clean closet from a different angle and notice a detail or two that my previous position might have not let me see.  So, while I still have a lot of stuff and stiff joints from lifting and pushing furniture, I am starting to see my thoughts settle with a new perception of my daily world.