I’m a Virgo. My obsession with an orderly living space borders on the pathological. Even if I’m only staying in a hotel for a night, I hang up what needs to be hung and fold what’s left neatly and place it in the appropriate drawers. Our granddaughters spend every Saturday night with us and when they’re down having breakfast, I make their bed, so they’ll have an orderly room in which to dress for church. This is not a concern for them, but it is for me. My favourite television show follows the real-life adventures of a woman who purges and organizes houses that have descended into chaos. I love “The Reveal” the moment when my heroine shows how beautiful a house can be when its owners learn to respect the old adage ‘a place for everything and everything in its place.’
I once read that people like me need to create external order because our internal lives are so filled with tumult and mess. This is probably true, but it doesn’t explain why the room in which I spend most of my life is a disaster.
Today, because I have finished “The Nesting Dolls”, I am cleaning my office. It’s a sobering experience. We live in a very big house. It is not a grand house but we do have four floors – all in use. Yet my tiny office is the final resting place for everything for which I can’t find a home. I have a stuffed fish over one of the windows; a collection of Russian wooden bears that used to do tricks until the strings that manipulated them broke, baskets that contain (by a conservative estimate) probably 1,000 markers, crayons and coloured pencils.) Piles of craft paper and glue. Scissors of every variety; a pickle jar with a label upon which my grandson has printed the word ‘Winnipeg’ because in May we’re all going to take the train to Winnipeg so the little boys can experience train ride, and we’re saving money for our tickets.
I accept this part of the clutter as inevitable—even admirable because it reveals a degree of altruism. But there is nothing admirable about the stacks of books, reams of yellowing paper, piles of half-filled notebooks; bulging three ring binders and boxes of just plain stuff that make it impossible for the dogs and me to fit into my workspace. Plain and simple, this is a hell-hole, and today on March 4th, the only day of the year that gives a command, I’m going to act.