When my little granddaughters leave from their monthly ten-day visit, I send them back to their mommy with a pang of sorrow but also - I might as well admit it - with some relief that I can now regain control of my own time and my own space.
The first thing I do is move all the toys from the living room (actually, from every available stretch of floor) to their bedroom, organizing as I go (all the toy tools back in the toy toolkit, all the toy medical instruments back in the toy doctor kit. etc.). Stray socks are dispatched to the laundry hamper, stray shoes to the shoe shelf.
This time, once started, I couldn't stop. I cast my gaze upon my home studio/office/writing space and saw much scope for improvement. I don't mind stacks of books on the floor if they are library books recruited for a project. But I don't want standing stacks of books lacking a permanent home. So I identified some that could go to someone who might love them, not more than I do, but with more active, ardent attention. Say, those books from my college days in German, a language of which I can no longer read more than two or three words. Duplicate copies of books by friends, bought to be doubly supportive of their careers. I managed to cull 45 books from my collection, grateful that now they have the chance of actually being read, which is what every book longs for most of all.
My files were next. Did I really need all my writing correspondence from 2005? Photocopies of articles used to research scholarly papers which are easily available now on the internet? I filled the recycling can to overflowing.
On my way to the recycling can, I couldn't help but notice . . . .the garage. I hadn't parked in it for years as, for some reason I can't quite remember, other family members park their vehicles there while I park outside and cheerfully scrape ice off my windshield every winter morning.
The night before I was to tackle the garage, I couldn't sleep, too excited at the prospect of all the decluttering I could do, which I might add, was mainly decluttering of OTHER PEOPLE'S STUFF. Advance notice had been given to the affected parties. They had promised to assist with the task after church that day. But on that 25-degree morning, I found myself out there in my threadbare nightgown, no coat, no gloves, starting to drag down duffel bags that hadn't been opened for a decade to see what I might find . . .
It was bliss.
Even greater bliss: sorting, washing, organizing, sweeping, and taking a few dozen trash bags, filled with items no longer needed or wanted here but potentially useful to others, to Goodwill.
My current favorite poet, Kay Ryan, who writes spare, exquisitely crafted verse, has a marvelous short poem on decluttering, "That Will to Divest," which begins: "Action creates a taste for itself." (Go right this minute and buy her Pulitzer-Prize-winning collection The Best of It).
Now that I'm done with the garage project, I'm thrilled with the results but also strangely sorrowful. Alexander the Great is said to have wept because he had no more worlds to conquer. I'm weeping because I have no more garages to declutter.
I guess I could offer to come declutter yours, but it wouldn't be the same. (Though actually, it does tempt me quite a bit . . . .). As Kay Ryan writes, once decluttering has begun:
it gets harder
not to also
simplify the larder
not to mention - the garage.
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