The mess we live with and leave behind
By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo
AS the year ends, I find that I have not changed. I am still a mess. I am still the same person who can find order in my own mess. I know this for eternity as I try to clean up the “mess” around me, and realize that after cleaning up, I have a hard time remembering the re-ordering of things.
My niece Ashang just sent me a message that she would treat me to ramen in a Japanese restaurant along Maginhawa Street. That was something to look forward to, and she also wanted to sleep over, something that I also look forward to, and that set me cleaning up the “mess” that sleeps on my bed, where, I hardly sleep, because my back needs straightening on a flat wooden floor.
Every year, I endeavor to organize, in the manner of Marie Kondo. “Commit yourself to tidying up”, she says by doing five basic things:
- Imagine your ideal lifestyle.
- Finish discarding first. Before getting rid of items, sincerely thank each item for serving its purpose.
- Tidy by category, not location.
- Follow the right order.
- Ask yourself if it sparks joy.
According to “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up” decluttering breaks down the physical act of tidying into two aspects: “deciding whether or not to dispose of something and deciding where to put it.”
Each year, I gather the ones I would like to share to others, clothes and technological devices that are still working but have been rendered out of style by newer versions. Then there are the books I have already packed but cannot send them to an ordinary carrier because the boxes are too heavy and would cost me a lot. The most problematic are gifts, which I keep, and memorabilia, especially handwritten letters and notes from loved ones, and different kinds of leaves I gathered during my travels abroad, and foraging in forests.
This year, I have decided to let go of all office files that have outgrown themselves. My personal files too, like official receipts, acknowledgments, reports submitted to institutions, service contracts, medical histories and records of family members. And yet, if it were not for the old office files I kept, I would not have been able to provide evidence to a case where we were acquitted because of it. I need to review the files, imagining future aberrations, before I give them away to Samboy, who will sell them per kilo in a junk shop.
My sister, Emma, is decluttering by location and deriving joy from her self-evolved
techniques. She found an artistic way to arrange all outdated mobile phones, cameras, beepers and an assortment of things in one corner of her house. She used all the abaca planters, resuscitated from their entombment in one of my cabinets. She does that with people, too, resurrecting them, putting them into good use, even when some are truly irredeemable total wrecks.
That process did not take a Marie Kondo. In fact, Emma is not even aware of her. Her
house smells green and full of life, except when Nico’s spoiled dog, Sun, defecates in the doormats. She complains of course, but she has a deep appreciation for Sun’s frantic barks whenever Nico gets a seizure.
In justifying the decluttering, Kondo quotes an old saying “a messy room equals a messy mind.” I felt an urge to send her a photo of Einstein’s “clutter” before he passed away. If the saying were true, then he is a mess, but I would prefer a mess like that, where a beautiful mind has grown.
Share your Comments or Reactions
Powered by Facebook Comments
