September 8, 2013September 8, 2013 by clumpaday

Let It Flow

Clump #39: Finish declumping inner pile.

I finally sat down for a tete a tete with my husband about the pile within the pile of yesterday. I’m usually reluctant to bug him about such things, as he often has a work project needing his focus. But today we got through it. And it really didn’t take too long at all. Let us remember this lesson. It was even easily done while watching football. The killer beach bag contained papers dating from 2007! Oy. I kid you not:

Two piles of shreddables:

Turned into this: (Again, the contents look much smaller when photographed from this angle.) (It’s really a lot!)

I once bought something from this adorable catalog for young nieces and nephews, but my pajamas-for-Christmas idea has long since grown stale as they have grown older. I tried to call the company to take my name off their mailing list, but they are not open on Sundays. I’ll do it tomorrow. Maybe some day, when the time and the chosen spouse is right, we will be lucky enough to have grandchildren. Until then, I have a question:

If a tree in a forest does not have to fall down to make catalogs, how big a clump does that save?

My husband and I got away from our clumps and went for a walk on this gorgeous day. Could we just please hit the pause button on the weather right now? Here he is walking ahead while I had to try to capture the light and blue sky reflected in water.

The message I’m hearing is that the paper and clutter in our house need to flow like the water in a stream. Let it go … let it flow.

September 7, 2013 by clumpaday

Three Pairs

Uncategorized
arts, Decluttering, Life, Photos, Vincent Van Gogh
1 Comment

Clump #38: Clean up remnants of killer-beach-bag pile.

Day Seven of my 30-day, 30-clump, 30-post challenge. One solid week! Will I be able to keep up the pace? Tune In!

The day before yesterday I powered through a beach bag which was straining with the weight of long-neglected papers. But as everyone knows (please let there be other people who do this), the real work begins when it’s time to approach the hot molten lava of the inner pile that can’t be thrown away or recycled.

Decisions must be made. Some are pretty easy, like putting another Billboard magazine in my son’s room. I hope Carly Rae Jepsen can coexist with Fiona Apple.

One little paper (top left in photo below) had the address scribbled on it of a friend who had loaned me the book A Dog’s Purpose, by Bruce Cameron, long, too long ago. It was a funny and touching story told from a dog’s perspective.

I’d bought the sequel when it came out, A Dog’s Journey, intending to send it right out with the loaned book as a thank you/sorry it’s coming back so late gift. By now, the sequel must be in paperback, and she might already have it. As if playing a slot machine that never paid out, I’d had various book and address combinations, but not all three at once. Until today.

I’m still dizzy from the vertigo of searching for those books in the monumental clumps I have yet to scale. It was a good reminder of the wisdom in tackling only one clump a day. Don’t look — don’t look ahead — just concentrate on this one step.

I was close to giving up the search for the loaned book, and buying the friend a new copy, when I finally spotted it. Good Dog! I went right to the post office and mailed them out, with a note containing my apology. I felt an immediate lightness.

Another Cryptoquote answer made its way into the little book I keep for ideas, notes and inspiration. This is one clutter-bug habit I will never apologize for. I love flipping through and getting a jolt of inspiration from the little slivers of paper.

Now the Kurt Vonnegut quote I mentioned in a previous post: (“To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.”) — by chance — is next to a quote from Vincent Van Gogh: “If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”

Two different men with a similar philosophy.

Let me pause now and let it sink in. I find the idea deeply inspiring that one of the greatest artists of all time had any knowledge of a voice saying “you cannot paint.” The Vincent Van Gogh self portrait in the Art Institute of Chicago is one of my favorites. I couldn’t locate my own photo (it was that kind of day), so here it is from google images:

It glows. Ahh, how I love art. I do feel my soul expanding.

September 6, 2013 by clumpaday

Energize Me

Clump #37: Recycle bag of spent batteries.

Imagine opening this cabinet and disturbing the bag of used batteries, spilling them out and sending them skiddering onto the counter below. Arggh! So annoying! It’s those little things in life that really get to you. My husband had taken a bunch out of the cabinet as a short-term strategy while saying we had to get rid of them. Agreed. I was going to surprise him at the beginning of the week by getting the whole lot recycled. Oh, how surprised and happy he will be, I gleefully thought.

I spent the morning looking up information and calling various stores. Our township office advised me to just throw them away in our regular trash; they are not accepted at hazardous waste drop-off days. I couldn’t picture throwing them out all at once. Then a ray of hope: a saleswoman at Home Depot said they would take them. Hooray!

Here they are, like a derelict hitchhiker who has overstayed his welcome:

I strode into Home Depot, plopped down the bag, and was promptly informed by a saleswoman (maybe the same one) that they only take rechargeable batteries. Curses! To be fair, Best Buy, Target, and Lowes do not accept them either. I had called a Whole Foods Supermarket, and was told very nicely that they used to collect them, but not anymore. Defeated. On to another clump.

Later that day, my husband (silhouetted here in a Minnesota sunset) came home from work and casually mentioned that he had been to the Plymouth Meeting Whole Foods store (a different one than I had called), and had almost bumped into some collection buckets for alkaline batteries. “Say What?!?” The universe truly works in mysterious ways.

My hero:

So I finally had my moment of closure today.

This isn’t much of an action shot, and you can’t even hear the angels singing.

It was such a beautiful day today, in a world worth taking that extra step to protect.

For those who might be interested, here is some information I found on Duracell’s website, duracell.com:

“Alkaline batteries can be safely disposed of with normal household waste. Never dispose of batteries in fire, because they could explode.”

“Do to concerns about mercury in the municipal solid waste stream, we have voluntarily eliminated all of the added mercury from our alkaline batteries since 1993, while maintaining the performance you demand. Our alkaline batteries are composed primarily of common metals — steel, zinc, and manganese — and do not pose a health or environmental risk during normal use or disposal.”

Okay so far, so good. I wasn’t planning on burning them.

“It is important not to dispose of large numbers of alkaline batteries in a group. Used batteries are often not completely dead. Grouping used batteries together can bring these live batteries in contact with one another, creating safety risks.”

Well, clearly, I could have disposed of them “in large numbers” had I followed the instructions of our township office.

“Proven cost-effective and environmentally safe recycling processes are not yet universally available for alkaline batteries. Some communities offer recycling or collection of alkaline batteries — contact your local government for disposal practices in your area.”

I don’t know about you, but that does not make me feel reassured. If your family is anything like ours, we go through a frightening number of these babies, powering all the electronic devices we can’t seem to function without.

I will continue to bring my batteries — and my business — to the Plymouth Meeting Whole Foods store. Here is their trash area: Compost, Recycle, or Landfill. Your choice.

September 5, 2013September 5, 2013 by clumpaday

Unfettered

Clump #36: De-Clump blue beach bag.

Day Five of the 30-day, 30-clump, 30-post challenge. I’m getting tired … stay tuned!

I love the word unfettered. Free, unencumbered … joyful, even. It’s how I should feel about this beach bag. A container for a towel, a book, flip-flops, and not much else. Instead, I weighed it down with a ton of unattended-to mail, magazines, and the like.

I’m not going to sugar-coat the story … this clump was rough. So much tedious raking and combing through old, neglected papers. In the middle of the pile, Oprah was there to cheer me on, smiling and proclaiming how happy I would be when I got through it. Thanks, I needed that!

And, yes, I did eventually reach the bottom. Hallelujah! Note the diminished sunlight.

Empty? Not quite. There was something lurking in the bag’s pocket: seashells and sand. As it should be.

Thinking about beaches and being weighed down reminded me of the time we were visiting the New Jersey shore and saw this horseshoe crab. The poor thing was washed up on the sand, burdened for who knows how long with moochers stuck to its shell.

Here’s a close-up (without my finger in the top left corner).

One of the joys of going on vacation is getting away from all of our stuff. The feeling of being unfettered for a while, and if you’re lucky, cleaned and cleared with a wave’s ebb and flow.

September 4, 2013September 5, 2013 by clumpaday

I am sick of stepping over Fiona Apple

Clump #35: Remove and empty basket from clothes closet and set up new mail system.

Day four of my 30-day, 30-clump, 30-post challenge. Can I do it? Tune in and see!

I’m sorry, Fiona Apple, neither you nor I deserve this. A basket of random clutter, swept together into the closet when company was on its way and long neglected. My son subscribed to Billboard magazine, and this copy happened to be stuck on top. Dated June 23, 2012. Hey, there’s my slipper, too.

Once I finally confronted it, the clump was pretty easy to dispatch. Below: a good organizational tool! Why was Fiona hiding it?

Another dump-able old thing.

I’ve asked my son, who is overseas for a year, whether I could toss his music industry magazines. He said there were some articles he wanted to hang onto. Where in the world could he have gotten this tendency? So I put Fiona in his room. Imagine something like Sunday’s Zits comic strip, below. Ah, like mother, like son.

I found this clipping, a Cryptoquote, in the pile: “To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.” –Kurt Vonnegut I taped it in my little book of ideas and inspirations.

When all cleared out, the basket was a handsome thing again. I thought I could use it for an in-box for the week’s mail. Maybe my husband and I could mix up some gin and tonics and have a regular mail-sort-through, if not every day, once a week? After all, the root of our paper problem comes in every day from the mailbox. (I can hear Kurt Vonnegut saying, “So do it.” This might be my favorite line of all time.)

On a lighter and prettier note, I have been seeing butterflies everywhere. Is it just me, or the season? Such a potent symbol of change. To transform from a dull, bumbling, many-footed creature to a multicolored, flying sylph is an everyday miracle.

This plant was at an Amish farm stand where I stopped today on the way home from visiting my mother. Multiply the one pictured by about ten — yellow butterflies were fluttering all over it, as if the flower centers offered secret messages for yellow-winged things:

Yesterday I saw something dark at a distance in the grass, which turned out to be a butterfly.

The closer I got, the more colors I could see.

And, when open, the wings looked like this:

Butterflies are telling me vividly and beautifully: change is possible. And so it goes.

September 3, 2013September 4, 2013 by clumpaday

Never, Ever Give Up

Clump #34: Shred Neglected Bag O’ Shreddables.

For those wondering why I have been posting at a higher frequency than usual, I am beginning a 30-Day–30 Clumps–30 Posts challenge for the month of September. Can I really do it? Tune in and see!

I was going over to a friend’s house today and thinking of the phrase “nose to the grindstone.” It’s how you get to feel in September. The back-to-school imperative. And I realized I was walking over a grindstone, or millstone, at the bottom of their stairway. I love this stairway:

Back to work. From this vantage point, the pile of paper doesn’t look so foreboding. I weighed it. It was four pounds of receipts and other sensitive-information stuff. Our parents’ generation never had to worry about this kind of thing.

It didn’t even take that long to shred, given time-outs for a paper jam (over-eager) and the shredder’s motor overheating. The job accomplished two things: first, making a dent the paper jungle — our worst clutter problem — and also, keeping a loud, steady noise going in the way-too-quiet, empty house.

Lo and behold, another bag of already-shredded of paper sat nearby, waiting to be recycled. Here’s the after picture, a combination of the two.

Ready for the recycling truck. Note that bad old suitcase of yesterday’s post kicked to the curb.

I was inspired by the story on the front page of today’s Philadelphia Inquirer. Endurance swimmer, 64-year old Diane Nyad, became the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida, approximately 110 miles, without the help of a shark cage. It was her fifth attempt.

“I have three messages,” she said, “One is, we should never, ever give up. Two is, you’re never too old to chase your dream. Three is, it looks like a solitary sport, but it is a team.”

I would like to take a moment to thank my older daughter and my blogging mentor, Jane — my team — for their steadfast encouragement. They have so often rescued me from the sharks and jellyfish of my inner demons and kept me on track.

Jane’s blog is myownpersonalsky.wordpress.org

September 2, 2013 by clumpaday

Postpartum Depression

Clump #33: Throw out bad suitcase.

I was not going to allow my daughter to bring this suitcase to college again. The darn thing was a lemon! Just about everything that could fall off or break, did. Monster-bag — you are now a clump in the dump.

In with the new. Oh yes, maybe the thick melancholy I have been feeling lately (urges to turn back the clock, fixation on children’s literature…) might have something to do with my baby bird flying the nest again.

Our youngest daughter started her sophomore year of college yesterday. Last year we appreciated all the hand-holding that tender parents of freshmen deserve: activities and speeches to reassure that this was a wonderful place to leave our darling girl. This year, we got the gear in her room and realized she would really rather sort it all out herself. Goodbye … we love you! Done.

Though she didn’t spend a lot of time at home this summer, her presence was deeply felt. The endless weeding I wrote about yesterday called to mind the myth of Sisyphus, (quoting from Wikipedia here) “a figure of Greek mythology who was condemned to repeat forever the same meaningless task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to see it roll down again.” Discouraging to the max. I would make great headway, then go away on a trip and come home to find the darn things had roared back, stronger and more plentiful than before.

This cycle continued until my younger daughter turned on her prodigious work ethic and slayed those weeds. (This one was kind of pretty.)

Then she became the Mulch Maven, a bare-footed earth goddess, spreading newspapers over the ground first to discourage future growth.

Even when not saving me from landscaping nightmares, her quiet presence was lovely. Love hurts.

While waiting in the car for my daughter and my husband to pick up the key to her new dorm room, this was my view out the windshield. Doesn’t it look like the tree was trying to give me a consoling hug? Am I losing it? (Maybe a tad too much time spent in the plant world?)

That night, some good friends invited us to go out to see the movie The World’s End. It was a hilarious distraction from the newly empty feeling. Without giving anything away, the story revolves around one character trying to relive the happiest time of his life. As you might imagine, it doesn’t work out as planned.

The key is to live in the moment and enjoy each passing season. You can’t turn back the clock, nor would you really want to. I’m getting there … after all, it’s not the end of the world.

September 1, 2013September 2, 2013 by clumpaday

A Little Weeding and Reading

Clump #32: Tear out massive amount of weeds.

My last post featured pictures of snow to cool down a bad heat wave. Now, on September 1st, the unofficial end of summer, I have the urge to turn back the clock to a perfect spring day in order to start the warm weather all over again. I can’t seem to get with the program. My younger sister and I met in New York when the spring season was new, to share tea in the delightful Alice’s Tea Cup tea shop and restaurant.

We then walked by the Dakota Apartments (home of Yoko Ono and scene of John Lennon’s murder) to Strawberry Fields, a tribute to John Lennon and quiet-zone park. My sister told me that a musician is always there busking, and sure enough, this musician was playing “Hey Jude” as we walked by. How did he know my name is Judy? Magical.

The focal point of the park is this mosaic. I took a photo quickly, as many people wanted to do the same.

Our magical mystery tour (sorry, couldn’t help myself) continued through Central Park to witness the glories of nature within a teaming city. A white egret?

Gorgeous, old blooming trees …

Blossoms sprouting from bark? Wow.

These turtles sunning themselves reminded me of Eloise’s pet turtle, Skiperdee, “who eats raisins and wears sneakers.”

In fact, we ended up walking through the Plaza Hotel, home to Eloise in the books by Kay Thompson and illustrated by Hilary Knight. Here’s Eloise’s portrait hanging in the lobby (with Skipperdee and Weenie the dog).

So, it was a grand day of revisiting favorite classic children’s literature: from Alice In Wonderland at the tea shop, and of course this statue in the park …

To Eloise, and to Stuart Little, who I could almost see racing that fine ship in the model sailboat pond.

Remember?

I had to revisit the wonderful combination of writing by E.B. White and illustrations by Garth Williams: “One morning when the wind was from the west, Stuart put on his sailor suit and his sailor hat, took his spyglass down from the shelf, and set out for a walk, full of the joy of life and the fear of dogs.”

At home again in the suburbs, I crashed back to reality as I faced a daunting amount of weeds. Oh, so many weeds. At one point, while clearing the small forest, I saw this. Obviously it was left behind by one of the young boys next door … but could it be Stuart Little’s car, in which he traveled on his search for Margalo the bird?

This week I heard the John Lennon song “Imagine” played on the radio in a set devoted to Martin Luther King, Jr., in recognition of the 50th anniversary of his “I Have a Dream” speech.

“You may say I’m a dreamer/ But I’m not the only one. I hope some day you will join us/ And the world will be as one.”

Is Margalo the bird in that cloud? Magical. For now, I’m getting back to work, down in the dirt, but I’m buoyed by warm memories, dreams, and imaginings.

July 17, 2013 by clumpaday

Forgiveness

Clump #31: Confront and send old, old, school project.

As a public service for all of us suffering through summer heat waves, I will be inserting snow photos into the text of this post, unrelated to the subject above. I took them this past March when we thought Spring–and warm weather–would never arrive. Remember?

Alright, back on task. In my quest to clear our bedroom, I was avoiding the final frontier. Why? First I took down the darned ironing board (clump #29), that old stick-in-the-mud. On the other side, whether I was fully conscious of it or not, lay hidden another clutter mine. A landmine of guilt. The hidden bomb, in this case, nuclear.

And here it is. Not too threatening-looking to the naked eye, but inside, something I received long, long ago.

It’s a school project from a, then, nine-year old boy. He sent it to my older sister. Each recipient was to write something in his composition book about themselves and where they live, place a souvenir to represent their state in the envelope, and send it along to another person in another state. Fun. My two sisters contributed to it, as did my mom, who sent it to me. And then in the middle of moving … I lost it in the shuffle. Oh, the terrible guilt and self-loathing. By the time I found it, that school year was way, way over.

Here is why I am avoiding this area beyond all logic and sanity. To me that envelope says: “You are a horrible person.” Good reason to bury the thing and not go near it.

I finally opened the envelope and withstood the heartbreak of reading the note again (complete with an adorable school picture) from the nine-year-old, now twenty-something-year old, boy/man. Then I called both sisters to own up to my sin. My older sister, the one who originated the chain, did not even remember it. When she finally began to remember, she joked that the missed assignment must have started the kid on a downward spiral to delinquency. Ha-ha! It was actually so good to laugh about it.

I wish I could report a happy, satisfying ending to this story. I wrote a heartfelt mea culpa to the young man, a lesson about the dangers of procrastination rather than fun facts about U.S. states. I also bought a $9.99 copy of the movie Rocky to place in the envelope to represent the Philadelphia area (not the souvenir I would have sent when he was nine).

I had high hopes of reaching him, but, unfortunately, the envelope was returned to me looking like it had been run over by a truck, bandaged together with multiple stickers. Apparently neither he nor his family live at that address anymore.

This story will have to be continued.

I recently received news of the death of a friend’s father, after which, I hopped into the car and heard the song, Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, sung by Dennison Witmer, on WXPN, 88.5. The beauty, simplicity, and profundity of the song really struck me. I sent a link to the friend, who said she had just put that song in the program for her father’s funeral service. Cue body chills.

The line, “It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,” especially got to me. Sometimes the hardest person to pardon is yourself (myself). But the result is much like the swift and transformative melting of a Spring snow.

Here is a link to the song:

http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Prayer+Of+Saint+Francis+Traditional/r3j7r?src=5

July 5, 2013July 6, 2013 by clumpaday

Apron Nostalgia

Clump # 30: Throw out insulation blanket from old hot water heater.

We finally replaced our old hot water heater. No more flirting with disaster. The plumber who did the work told us to get rid of the insulation we had wrapped around it, as it was a fire hazard. Okay, water and fire disasters averted. Not too exciting, but aren’t we getting proactive!

Now for prettier pictures. My mother lives in a retirement community in Lancaster County, PA, an area home to many Amish and Mennonite people. I took this photo in the town of Strasburg earlier this year when the trees there looked like garlands of pink popcorn balls strung over the street.

Right after snapping the above shot, I heard the sound of horse hooves and lowered my camera to catch an Amish horse and buggy traveling through.

On a more recent visit, I couldn’t find my mom in her room or in any of the common areas. One of the aides told me, “She’s upstairs — the twins are here with their aprons.” Huh?? I went upstairs to find her in a group of residents listening to, indeed, two identical Mennonite ladies, dressed the same, and passing around a collection of aprons.

Now, you might think a presentation on aprons would not be very interesting, but, in this case, you would be wrong! As I sat down next to my mom, one twin was pointing out the “chicken scratch stitch” on the bottom of a gingham apron, a tactile and visual treat. The twins regaled us with aprons of all varieties: fancy, see-through voile ones worn over navy blue dresses by women serving as waitresses at wedding receptions that the bride’s mother would make (not sure whether this is still done); aprons made from feed bags, surprisingly pretty, floral fabrics; a “slop apron,” long, plain, and off-white, to be worn over your “good apron,” and so many more. A fishing apron had a hand towel sewn on one side for wiping your hands after handling the slimy fish, and a pocket on the other side. I asked what the pocket was for. “Your hankie,” a twin replied matter-of-factly. Of course.

The twins were so good-natured, patient and calm. I could have listened to them forever, and really just wanted to go home with them to what I imagined to be their simpler, kinder world. I asked a staff member for more information about them the next time I visited and learned that they live together, are known for their beautiful gardens, and that the first twin to wake up in the morning chooses what to wear for both. Someone else remarked, “You get the feeling that never a cross word is exchanged between them.”

After passing around an apron made for hanging out laundry, with a pocket for storing clothespins, they read the following rules:

IRONED??????? There it was again. And all the laundry-hanging rules in past-tense.

I am certainly not making the case for going back to more time-intensive housework, when a woman’s domain was solely in the home. Apron strings: the ties that bind, in more ways than one.

But today, as women’s roles expand and technology and information explode, I can’t help hankering for a time of hankies, hand sewing, and horses. And, maybe at the bottom of it all, feeling nostalgic for the days when my mom was a force in this world, more Julia Child than Donna Reed, decked out in her apron.

Clump A Day

postcards from the clogosphere

Category / Uncategorized