If work spaces are reflections of our life and order, then both are disheveled mess.
I look at my desk. It is covered in clutter. I don’t know where all it came from but, without question, it is there. Not taking time to clean and clear away, it’s corroded space and place for which I made to write.
Most often, rather than address, I take my journal, books, and pens and move to to open of the kitchen. Morning’s time of writing and thought complete, I pile and carry all in stack, placing back and atop the mess without ever organizing reason that I flee.
Today, I search for bottom and glass-mirror face of desk again. Many books and journals are spread, receipts for filing for the farm (and many drawn out of pockets and never discarded), bills, junk mail: clutter never asked for but flooding and cluttering life in distraction and disturbance from what we value and truly matters.
I start with a trash can. It’s where most of clutter belongs. It’s making and taking the time to do so that gets me.
Of the binders and books, they are many “works in progress” that are euphemism for “thoughts and things, unfinished, that I never completed, prioritized, nor returned to proper place.”
…But we can change—we just have to decide, then act.
Front right corner of desk remains stack of journals, written, filled and never put away because stories are there I wish to tell beyond black and green of their leather covers. Most recent-filled are strewn in scatter framing working area of desk’s center, distance from center most-telling of how long ago it was they filled—no more than a year, no less than weeks—and there are many.
Books in read, I return to shelves—I can always draw them down again, bookmarks of receipts, cards, candy wrappers, whatever was near and close at hand to hold the present-page.
That brings to light another problem—my shelves are mostly full.
Its center’s expanded with gifts and treasures from family and times, and they mean more than the books, once or never read, rarely returned to again.
There are whole sections I haven’t touched in years, decades—references to past life-eras I no longer seek for time. There is a Civil War section mostly untouched since my years at the Naval Academy. Half to whole-“blacekd out” (spelled wrong in process of typing but accurately fitting for cognitive condition), I used to try and impress girls with Civil War trivia—neither inebriation nor trivia ever impressed.
I no longer drink. Nor do I study and give time to battles that were never mine. Both are eras that are gone.
I clean shelves. I put into boxes, not throwing away, but decluttering space where more relevant books should be, reflective of my present life.
Books and shelves and memories, they all need organizing, reducing, and reordering from time to time. If we never do, we run out of space for the present and new passions and values that we find.
By the time I finish, desk is still a mess.
Seven journals still surround me—better than before.
One bank deposit receipt from last calves that I sold, and one Dove Dark Chocolate wrapper slow-savored as I worked. It’s message on the silver:
“Write your own fairytale and be your own hero.”
Such deserves to be a bookmark and, undoubtedly—soon—will be.
I have space to type. I use it now, writing thought free-flowing to declutter mind as desk and shelves and room around—working toward an order, decluttered, closer to complete.