Foiled again! Or not, if I grab the reins . . .
Yesterday’s post still stands: I am gradually renewing myself in a seasonal fashion of sorts, regaining my typical Spring-like attitudes as I begin what is for me a long and gradual process of Spring Cleaning in home and heart. I never realize I’ve been letting myself get quite so cobwebby until I’m nearly mummified. But I usually recollect my senses eventually, as now, and begin removing all of the crust and crumbs and detritus and down-dragging inhibitors I’ve been collecting over the last while. So, out with the old tinfoil (above) that is best recycled when it’s no longer leak-proof. Out with the burned out porch lights and in with the new (hurray for the companies now making those oddball shapes and sorts in LEDs). Out with my overcast persona and back to my native optimism.
This is not to say that all is perfection and clarity in my little corner of the universe, only that it’s once again slanting toward an upward trajectory as it should be. I also find, in these times of slewing back ’round to my intended direction and sweeping out the junk, that as I begin and jump in, I can get a little confused, overwhelmed or just plain distracted by the plethora of perfectly acceptable but sometimes competing directions I can take or the complexity of attempting to sort and stratify the tasks. But rather than turning into an emotional hoarder and becoming either unwilling and unable to do one single part of the heap of projects and therefore unwilling and unable to begin, let alone attempt the whole–or, worse yet, getting so bogged down in the process that I am entombed in my own attempt–I find it’s reasonably helpful to let my mind wander a bit and pick at bits and pieces. A zone of blurry, abstract thinking is quite all right with me at the moment. It’s the pseudo-zen that allows me to blandly go about picking up a stray button or used cup here and there, set them down as I pass their proper places, and along the route-to-nowhere, discover the manageable task that I can tackle for this few minutes of my time, all the while letting my brain meander until it lights on whatever else it deems necessary for the next bit of progress.
Slanted and distorted as the point of view may be for the moment, the calm in this unfocused state allows me to safely unbar the windows that had become clogged with cloudy thinking and blocked by barriers of other kinds . . .
So while it may look to anyone else as though an event of Random Nuclear Catastrophe has taken place in the house, I’m actually accomplishing a lot of tiny deeds that had stacked up both on my lists of incipient doings and in unseen corners that evaded such evaluations. I’m pulling out the one straw here or there that opens a peephole through the big haystack that has been surprisingly stealthy in building up, removing one brick of rubble from the demolition that lets a ray of daylight through. And yes, each peephole or ray reveals yet more loose straws and bricks until I feel like a Big Good Wolf about to knock down the piggish house that’s been unnecessarily but inevitably building up in secret, because all of its weaknesses have been revealed bit by bit, button by cup, task by task. All on a sort of hazy autopilot wherein I can let my mind wander, so seemingly relaxed but as it caroms around in slow-motion also more astute than large amounts of frustrated puzzling.
It may look fairly directionless and mildly crazed in mid-process, but strangely it’s quite calming to me and gives me a greater sense of purpose and direction after all. It all begins to take shape, swirling around as it does and gathering speed, and at some point, coalescing into more sensible plans. But until then, I can go along with the current of this abstract flow and while my mind is relatively free from restrictions in it, maybe come up with some surprising new reasons to be content just living in the moment and letting go of my worries.
The beauty of structure is that it can evolve out of seeming randomness quite naturally--if I let it be so . . .
Art-Colored Glasses 
Oh I know what you mean.. haw DARE that lovely sun show up my dust problem.. I am thinking seriously of tacking the (gulp) PANTRY! Help!! c
Tacking – TackLing.. whatever!~! c
Well, *my* pantry was *tacky* before I started the overhaul, so either of your options would still be okay! Dust was the least of my worries in that chaos. 😉
The use of distortion in your art…beautiful! And the feeling of just letting go…So completely relateable. Your posts are always a source of inspiration.
Likewise, my dear–it was good to have a few moments to catch up on your blog yesterday for the first time in a while, because you always get me (don’t tell anyone!) *thinking*. 🙂
Heh, I noticed that. I always find myself venturing onto your blog like a lost little kitten trying to find a home. I find bits and parts of it on your blog. It’s a wonderful feeling, really.
Beautiful.
Thank you, Madame. I’m hoping the results will be fairly beautiful, too, but just getting my groove back is a start!
Really like the way your handled that foil, Kathryn. Really beautiful. Like your weather, I think you’re a few weeks ahead of me and our weather. I’ve been diddling about, cleaning this, dusting that, like some marathoner in the weeks preceding the race. Soon enough, I’ll be ready and I’ll start at one end of the house and work my way back. I’ll probably hit the wall upon entering the kitchen but that’s when all of this training will pay off. I’ll push on and, before you know it, I’ll be done.
And if I’m at all lucky, it will be March 1st and not July 4th.
Of course, if it’s July 4th, you can always enjoy everybody celebrating your success with a bang!
The foil is an unsurprising subject, I suppose, for Miss Magpie’s shiny-object attentions. 😉
Oh how I wish I could be as realistic as you – I sadly have to finish a task I start and have been know to do so until 3am – not wise! I do however get a thrill out of tiding a cupboard or corner – not that my cupboards and corners ever really get the chance to get too out of sorts – my obsessiveness can’t or is it won’t allow it. Quite sad really.
🙂 Mandy
Believe me, I’ve had those all-nighter impulses too, but for now I’m in a more comfortable mode and will enjoy it whilst I can! If you want, you may choose a designated task that you hate around the house, label it Kathryn’s Mess, and blame me for it not being finished. When it finally gets done, you can leave another Mess up to me until it stops nagging at you. And so forth. Others may think you’ve developed an imaginary friend problem, but think of all the pressure it’ll take off of the cleaning problems! 😉
You are the sweetest! Sending you a big hug! 🙂 xo
First on the list: getting rid of two-year-old seed catalogs! 🙂
I have a magazine-hoarding problem…I’ve actually intended to write about it for some time now, but can’t seem to get there…
Happy Spring Cleaning, be it mental or physical!
You just gave me an idea! I have a similarly towering stack of past-issue magazines (free or gift subscriptions that neither of us even has time to read lately), and coincidentally, have my annual ‘wellness’ doctor’s appointment coming up–maybe I should just sneak a batch of magazines into the doctor’s waiting room . . . 😉
. . . and now you know that I will be doing the physical Spring Cleaning on more than just the house soon, too. 🙂
Enjoy the calm the process gives you. I think I know what you mean; in much the same way as the darkest hour is before the dawn so too the worst disorder (at least for me) is when everything is half sorted and things are perched in the strangest of places en route to their *proper* homes.
Exactly so! And I’ve found a meditative character to some cleanup tasks that I used to dread. For example, laundry folding, which I always hated, is now for me a quiet and repetitively mindless process that allows me to unravel more knotty problems in its midst. (Bonus: clean laundry smells nice.) 🙂
“Living in the moment” – something I’ve never really achieved, but keep trying, and then at this time of year I start dreaming of Spring and realise I’m projecting and not living in the now. Will I ever learn?
Not if you’re like the rest of us! But you do owe yourself a *little* slack, not only because it’s perfectly clear to me that you live very well in the present, but also because plotting and anticipating the future *is* legitimately part of what one should enjoy in the present, no? 🙂
xo
Wonderful, a bit of tortology! (is that the word I’m grasping for?)
I looked up ‘tortology’ and only found facetious references to legal torts (and ‘the study of cakes’ from one torte enthusiast!)–but I wonder if you’re referring to ‘tautology’, which as I understand it is essentially arguing one’s point by using one’s own conclusion as the *proof* (or, as my family might call it, information collected from the Dept. of Redundancy Dept.). A practice I do indeed use, for lack of actual information and viable facts, quite often as you may have noticed!!
I needed this, especially that last photo caption.
Merci!
So glad I can help. 😉 Even if, as is mostly the case here, I’m preaching to myself most of the time! The bit of obsessive in my nature makes me always want to meddle and tweak things and I need to remember that many of them do best if left to themselves!
I so understand. this post…..slewing great word. The haystack word picture,……..wonderful.
Thank you kindly, Terri. I love the inherent swing in that word Slewing. Quite syncopated in a way.
When spring break comes, I will begin the spring cleaning. Until then I must live with the winter clutter.
Optimism suits you, Kathryn.
Believe me, I know very well that the teacher’s life allows few windows for fiddling with household stuff beyond survival mode. When we were both teaching full time, not much of it happened chez nous except on rare weekends or holidays, when of course we had much rather been goofing off productively anyhow!
Oh, dear, I can relate to the meandering, but can’t quite get the cobwebs out of my brain… my hubby asked me yesterday why I only made one side of the bed (my side;). It seems I don’t know where to begin and when I do I drift off somewhere else. Then there is always my favorite form of procrastination… sitting and reading my favorite blogging friend(s) posts for inspiration. I shall turn over a new leaf, or pile of filing, or something… tomorrow.
ps I haven’t done my theory homework and my lesson is tomorrow at 5.. some weeks I just can’t get in the mood!!!
xo Smidge
Oh, thou speak’st my language! How often we have no choice but to live in pursuit of what’s right in front of us at the precise moment. But as I’m realizing (above), going with that flow isn’t always the worst way through the maze.
xoxo
I tend to move my way through my home in the same way, Kathryn, much to the consternation of my sweet baboo. And as the ten projects in process get further into process and it looks as though there is no hope – to my husband, at least- suddenly I put the last piece of the process into place and he is amazed at my awesomeness!
Though deep down I’ll bet he is fully aware of the awesomeness at all times. Sweet baboos are that way. 🙂 In some ways, there’s something great about the storm before the calm, since it makes the contrasting conclusion that much more impressive and glorious.