Had I gotten up early today, I would have gone for a long bike ride followed by a run. But given the first chance in days to get some real sleep, I snapped it up eagerly. By the time my morning laziness was starting to fade, it was too damn hot outside for serious exercise. I weighed alternatives: grocery shopping, laundry, some of the (ugh) work I brought home, a nap, some reading, or the always-enticing Bad Saturday TV?
Shopping, I reasoned, could happen at the tail end of the run I will go on once it cools off a bit in early evening. My brain and eyes are just too tired for reading or working. And the laundry's mostly done, since it meshes nicely with the Bad TV I slipped effortlessly into watching.
Then, midway through a silly E! True Hollywood Story (I turned the tube on too late to catch a 90210 rerun), I was suddenly struck with an uncontrollable urge to organize. These moments strike me rarely, as the jumbled messes in my closets and drawers reveal. But I've recently been attempting to bring some order to my chaos and have been purging clutter like mad, sort of the opposite of a nesting urge.
And so I attacked. First the closet that contains most of my "nice" clothes, piling and organizing and sorting and gasping with surprise at discovering lovely, stylish items I'd all but forgotten about. Then on to the blouses-and-pants closet, where I held firm to the self-imposed edict of eliminating anything I haven't worn in more than 18 months. Finally, coats, too, were added to the pile. Three hours later, I had a little space in my always-burgeoning armoires and two huge lawn-and-leaf bags filled with my cast-offs. A few of these things (the faux-leather jacket from Paris, the nice black suit that's just not me, the long suede skirt that's four sizes too big, several silk blouses left over from my hide-the-body days) will make some lucky Goodwill shoppers very happy. Others (the long red "riding" jacket, the brownish-green plaid suit, the too-tight, too-low pocketless jeans) are destined for the fashion disaster hall of shame, and I'm left wondering how they lasted so long in my possession.
Feeling satisfied, I surveyed the results of my labors. Alas, even after this massive dumping, my closets are still embarrassingly full. I live alone and am blessed with substantial amounts of closet space, so I've never really had to worry about finding room for new acquisitions. Friends have instituted a one-in, one-out rule for clothes shopping. Others engage in a seasonal dumping of the faded and outdated. I'd attempt something similar, but I'm almost as attached to my clothes as I am to my books.
The relationships to the two are slightly different. My books are my close friends, my windows, my soul. I need piles of books around me to feel grounded and safe and sane. My clothes, on the other hand, are more of an encumbrance, but I'm always sure that waiting just around the corner is the precise situation or event to which I will need to wear a particular skirt/dress/blouse/pair of boots, and so I can't possibly throw them away.
I'm not particularly girly, but all the same I need my stuff around me. Sometimes I think I'd like to be less of a material girl. To be able to move on a whim and to carry all my worldly possessions on my back. Yet while I can be very, very happy in a tent or a tiny third-world hotel room or a simple apartment, at least for some moderate stretch of time, I really do love my home and my things. As I write this, I'm realizing that they provide me with a sense of independence and accomplishment. Even as these possessions hold me in place, they remind me that I'm self-reliant, self-sufficient, and free. I'm not sure that this makes sense, but it's a nice feeling.
Still, I have to get rid of some more of this crap.
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