August 31, 2014 by clumpaday

Paper Chains

Clump #225: Tackle box of swept-up papers and other clutter; day 21 of 30-day challenge.

I must confess to a Clump A Day roadblock. I was dreading clearing out this container of (mostly) paper all day today. The task was especially onerous because much of it was culled from previous clearings … a core clump, one might say, dense in its stubbornness. One might say many other less polite things, but I’ll just add that I spent most of the day doing anything else to avoid it. (“These plants need watering … immediately!”)

I finally got it pretty much sorted out, but there are a few piles I’ll need to consult with other family members about, and a “Do” pile, which will take a bit longer to make go away. More work for tomorrow. But two full bags of paper for recycling are inspiring.

This continues to be the hardest part of my Clump A Day journey: I perform a herculean paper purge, feel victorious, and then the tide comes roaring back … and I’m pulled under again. It’s been especially challenging this summer to keep up with the paper flow while away on vacation.

One such trip was to Boston, where my older sister and I spent a wonderful day at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. In a fairly new “Monk’s Garden,” pictured below, circuitous paths — almost labyrinth-like — wound through beautifully varied greenery …

evoking lessons learned over and over again in an endless (?) loop.

August 30, 2014 by clumpaday

Birds of a Feather, Stored Together

Clump #224: Clear out catch-all box; day 20 of the 30-day challenge.

At first look, this box below seemed like a container with a certain logic: mostly office supplies.

But … No. It was clearly a soldier pressed into service during a company’s-coming-clutter-attack. A mishmash of all sorts of junk:

Since our younger daughter’s summer project to create logical areas of storage in the basement, I find it is satisfying to place office supplies with office supplies; Easter grass with the Easter baskets, etc., in their places down there. Even a tiny button is now with its compatriots in the vintage 1991 (our son’s infancy) baby food jar.

I considered giving away the Monday through Friday calendar note pad (unopened, unable to help me get organized), but I decided to actually give it a whirl, and placed it on my desk. Here goes!

And then came a tough one. A very old card I had found in a five and dime when I was a college student. The courtly language and pictures still charm me today, but do I need it?

It’s not in great shape, so I don’t even think it would be valued by a collector.

I can’t be so organized and streamlined that I omit things in my world that give me joy, like the one folder I’m keeping from yesterday’s file purge. It was put together by our older daughter when her hero was Jane Goodall.

The folder opened to another folder:

And then opened to reveal a dozen animal fact cards that, I’m sure, were sent to us to entice us to buy more. We didn’t bite.

One of the Honest Tea bottle cap quotes I unearthed gives me pause: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” –Charles Darwin.

I’m responding to change as best I can, while holding on to a few cherished things.

August 29, 2014August 29, 2014 by clumpaday

Antiques, Oddities, and Pretty Flowers

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Babies, Flowers, Life, Paper Clutter, Photos
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Clump #223: Comb through and recycle ancient file folders; day 19 of 30-day challenge.

The photo above of a blue poppy (from a botanical garden in Stavanger, Norway) is for two-year-old twins who, I was told, viewed this blog today. Crying “purple pretty flowers” over and over for five minutes while resisting a nap is the best “like” I’ve ever gotten. Babies were the theme of the day, like this shop sign my husband and I passed by, both sweet and creepy:

But then, it did go along with the general Antiques and Oddities motif of the store:

So … to the clump! An old, old, yes, antique, box of file folders, hideous in their out-of-date-ness.

They contained quaint things like preschool contact lists and actual written directions (before the day of the GPS):

I saved so many magazine and newspaper articles I know I won’t ever reread. A good lesson for the present and my continuous clipping habit. And speaking of clipping, a bit of sweet and creepy of our own: hair from our older daughter’s first hair cut (Awww):

And, finally, the box is empty and a pile of papers is ready for the recycling bag.

I vividly remember having tried the sunflower house, above. The idea was to sow sunflower seeds with morning glory seeds to make a cozy little house. I believe there’s a reason it is shown in a drawn illustration. It never looked this dense and wonderful, just leggy and ratty. Unlike the flowers that grow wild.

Purple pretty flowers!

August 28, 2014August 29, 2014 by clumpaday

On Angel’s Wings

Clump #222: Transport clump of junk to Fall Festival storage area; day 18 of the 30-day challenge.

So the thing about a big de-clumping project is this: things look worse before they look better. Exhibit A: part of the pile of stuff that was (past tense) clogging up our older daughter’s bedroom, the current repository for things to be given away. Most of it had been brought up from the basement to be sorted, or was handed over to me by a friend who was moving.

I filled our car with most of it today, and put it in a storage shed for the flea market-style fundraiser at our Quaker Meeting’s Fall Festival.

The basket below and its twin lived for years and years in the basement storage area. Why not let someone else have them and put them to good use? But they caught my heart at the last minute. I had bought them to fill with flowers to decorate our wedding ceremony. I just couldn’t give them away. I told myself if I kept them I’d really have to put them to use, but how? At this point in my life I’m not interested in containers of artificial flowers, or any such dust-collectors.

And then it hit me. What am I constantly struggling to control and corral? Magazines and newspapers! Hooray! It was a “You’ve had the power in your shoes all along” moment.

The newspaper on the top contained an article called “The angels who care and comfort in worst of times,” from The Philadelphia Inquirer about health care “angels.” Talk of angels seems to have a new-age reputation, associated with being “out there.” I loved seeing this biblical quote at the top of the piece:

Nothing flaky about Luke 22:43. Reassuringly solid. May you, as I have, feel strengthened by angels.

August 27, 2014 by clumpaday

Freeing Chi

Clump #221: Clear away piles of paper; day 17 of 30-day challenge.

Here’s proof positive that a clump can be cleared on a day of lethargy and low incentive. I really had to push myself for this one, but was rewarded with a few hidden gems:

I hadn’t remembered that I’d put aside the April (!) newspaper section containing an obituary for Mary Scottoline, “Mother Mary,” the mother of my favorite Philadelphia Inquirer columnist and mystery writer, Lisa Scottoline. I’d read about her for years through her daughter’s column, but I loved learning more facts of her life from the article. For instance, she was the youngest of 19 children. Wow. Understandably, she had to fight for attention.

This little snippet also lightened the work:

And the feng shui chi is saying “Merci …

we may now flow free!

August 26, 2014 by clumpaday

Flitting from the Nest

Clump #220: Get younger daughter off to trip; day 16 of 30-day challenge.

So the clump of the day is hard to put into words. How do measure the emotional weight of getting ready and saying goodbye to a child leaving for many months in Russia? So many items checked off the list: things bought, appointments with all manner of doctors, banking and telephone details straightened out … the list continues to go on in the case of required books ordered nearly a month ago, and still nowhere to be found.

I guess the one task I will document is the repair in the leg of her pajama shorts (yes, old as the hills and pilly) that our daughter had wanted to pack, but with a gaping hole she felt self conscious about:

I realized when I found the thread to match the turquoise fabric that it was the same thread I had used to sew her Halloween costume when she was two years old. <Pang> Our older daughter was Pocahontas, and our younger daughter was Flit, Pocahontas’ hummingbird friend in the Disney film. Our son was beyond the sway of his casting-director-older sister, and went as the white Power Ranger.

Oh boy, why did I look back through the pictures to find this?! Heart pain upon heart pain! And adding maudlin to maudlin, now I just need to sew up the empty space in our lives.

August 25, 2014 by clumpaday

Scaling a Mountain of Clumps

Clump #219: Clear one pile of papers from the party runoff. Day 15 of the 30-day challenge.

Oh, the terrible feeling of backsliding on this Clump A Day journey. With guests coming to our house yesterday, I fell into the old habit of corralling all the loose papers together and shoving them into a currently unused room, in this case our older daughter’s. This room had recently become the repository of basement stuff still needing decisions and/or to be given away. A photo of the whole room would be way too embarrassing and overwhelming right now.

The loose papers on top of the plastic containers were the first to go. I have to give myself a teensy bit of credit that I did get right to it today, rather than giving way to those infamous good intentions that pave the way to hell.

I took the photo below when my husband, our son, and I were climbing Preikestolen, or Pulpit Rock, in Norway. I had serious doubts about whether I’d be able to make it. My son said, “Just take it one rock at a time,” and then we both said “A clump at a time.” I wanted to remember the exact moment.

There were sooo many rocks.

My camera battery had given way by the time we reached the top. I bought this magnet later on in our trip to remind me that, unbelievably, impossibly, I had made it there …

one rock, one step, one clump at a time.

August 24, 2014August 25, 2014 by clumpaday

Letting Go … Letting Grow

Clump #218: Ready house for bon voyage party for daughter. Day 14 of 30-day challenge.

Our daughter will soon be traveling to Russia for a school year. Yes, Russia (I’m used to having to repeat it when I tell people in person). This has been the elephant in the room, so to speak, but now the jig is up on my state of denial. We had a send-off dinner party for her this evening, which involved a whole day of preparations … too much for this tired old body, brain, and, sore fingers to detail. Our daughter worked diligently with me. As much as I appreciated her helpfulness, it was also a painful reminder of how I am going to miss her.

The photo below is not actually from today (who had time to take pictures?), but recently when we were gifted with two enormous zucchini, and she knew what to do with them.

I took the photo at top when I visited The Church of the Covenant on a trip to Boston this summer. The interior was designed by Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company. The Tiffany windows are exquisite. I was frustrated that I couldn’t get better images, but I just checked out the church’s website, and you can take a tour by way of a lovely little video here. It includes a much better view of this beautiful Madonna and Child which speaks of the longing to hold close a child forever, as unrealistic and unhealthy as that may be. Taking a deep breath.

August 23, 2014August 23, 2014 by clumpaday

Perfectly Imperfect

Clump #217: [Finally] finish clearing kitchen table. Day 13 of 30-day challenge.

This will be short but sweet. I delegated today’s clump to our younger daughter …

and now a kitchen table is reborn. Kind of a boring photo, but very exciting in person, believe me! Tea anyone?

A quote from one of the bits I clipped during my recent newspaper purge has been turning around in my head. It’s from The Philadelphia Inquirer, the “Side Show, Your Daily Dose of Gossip” (I never miss it), by the wonderful Tirdad Derakhshani: “Jeff Bridges lays it out The modern obsession with being positive blinds us to the darkness and negativity all life forms need, Jeff Bridges declares. ‘Imperfection and perfection go so hand in hand,’ the Giver star tells the Wall Street Journal, echoing his fave author, Alexander Solzhenitsyn. ‘Our dark and our light are so intertwined that by trying to push the darkness or the so-called negative aspects of our life to the side … we are preventing ourselves from the fullness of life.'” Hmm. Makes me picture the Yin-Yang symbol.

The table top’s perfection will not last long, soon to be darkened by the endless stream of clutter, but I will enjoy it thoroughly while it lasts.

August 22, 2014August 22, 2014 by clumpaday

Eye on the Prize

Clump #216: Clear out box of awards; decide what to keep and why. Day twelve of 30-day challenge.

This was a gut-wrencher. The one I couldn’t face yesterday. The box, below, was collecting dust in the basement until our younger daughter unearthed it during her recent basement-cleaning quest. The awards belong to our older daughter. I used to joke that if she liked earning ribbons so much, I would offer her a ribbon for making her bed every day … but somehow that didn’t work.

Does she need to keep them? And if yes, why? Some of them are easily dispensed with. The equivalent of participation medals. Others she worked really hard for. Obviously she doesn’t want them in her current residence, or even in her childhood room. As luck would have it, The Daily Beast today contained a thorough article on the subject, “My Loser Kid Should Get a Trophy,” by Brandy Zadrozny.

As an adult, this daughter is now learning the dangers of deriving one’s self worth from outside affirmation. We all do it to some extent or another. I wish I could give her a medal for coming to terms with that important life lesson. (Ha!)

So, okay, after a long consultation and photo documentation of the awards for posterity, these were the two worth keeping. A ribbon from an elementary school environmental contest when she was determined to solve (single-handedly) the global warming crisis, and an important academic medal. I was an abysmal student, myself. Maybe I need something to touch in order to prove to myself that a child of mine was able to defy the odds of my genetic contribution.

When I was looking back for some other photos to illustrate this post (reaching for the brass ring, above), I scanned through pictures from a recent trip to Boston and Cambridge, MA, where there was a crowd waiting to take photos with John Harvard in the Harvard Yard; a line to touch his left shoe for good luck. I googled the tradition and found out the likeness is not really John Harvard, rather a Harvard student (descended from an early president), since no pictures of J.H. existed when the statue was being made.

Another misconception is the myth that it’s a student tradition to touch his foot for good luck. I was horrified to learn from an article in The Harvard Crimson, “The Truth About John Harvard,” that the actual student tradition involves peeing on him. (I truly apologize for the second mention of pee this week.) From the article:

“Harvard may be an elite institution open only to a lucky few, yet it seems to exacerbate, rather than mollify, concerns about status. The product of this anxiety is frequent displays of contempt for the institution. We pee (figuratively) on things all the time: we skip classes, we are contemptuous of the entire education system, and we constantly bemoan the inadequacy of the social life.”

I’m just going to go now and wash my hands a few hundred more times.

Clump A Day

postcards from the clogosphere

Month / August 2014