Clutter

Goodness, it's been almost a week since I posted. I've been down with a demon sinus infection, but still working, planning, and doing a bunch of other things. Being sick has catapulted me into a wariness of sorts concerning my trip, which begins in four days. I don't know about you, but when I'm sick, I don't want to be anywhere but home. I was like that in college. Even after being away from "home" for more than a year, when my throat began to ache, I instantly longed for my parent's house. So, having been ill these past few days, it has been impossible to fathom being anywhere but my cozy, comfortable, familiar home.

The sickness (or the medication I'm on to get rid of it) has made me so foggy, I can't think straight about anything, although things have improved greatly today. The aches and pains and fatigue have closed in on me and pushed away my desire and ability to do other, more important things, which brings me to my topic and today's title, clutter.

I look at my desk right now and it is covered in various stacks. Each of those stacks is a project I'm working on. I know the deadline and requirements for each, some are big, some small, but what they all have in common is their cluttering up of my life. This is my desk at the school, so I can shuffle things around and limp through my days. At home however, it doesn't work that way. Most of my writing is done at home, from a small red desk under the window in my bedroom, save this blog that I usually eek out during a lunch break. The red desk is the birthplace of “The Hatpin Killer”, it is where articles on architecture, construction, church sound systems, bridal sizes, and ski resorts are created, and it must be a clutter-free environment. For whatever reason I cannot sit down with the intention of writing anything (good) with the same stacks around that I allow at the school. This means laundry must be folded, hung and put away, the bed must me made, the books and DVDs must be straight on the shelf, the floor must be vacuumed, my stack of bills must be neat (and preferably paid) and the desk itself must be free of STACKS!

Why is this so? I don't know. Again, the stacks on my desk at the school don't bother me so much. Maybe it's because I have more space in that office than I do in the home office. Maybe the need for neatness at home is just subconscious procrastination. “I have to do this load of clothes before I can get started.” I have to change the sheets before I can read over that interview.” Maybe I'll never know, but I do know this, once the room is clean, I can always sit down and get busy with an article, whatever the topic may be.

The same goes for mental clutter. There is nothing worse than having an article due while I have some pressing personal issue on my mind. In fact, it’s dang near impossible to churn out anything but oatmeal-like dribble. This is why I become a peacekeeper when I’m on deadline, I clear my life of the possibility of personal drama.

As I write, the medicine is finally doing its job and I feel the fogginess lifting for good and I’m looking forward to a clutterless, unclouded day. Ironically, it’s supposed to rain cats and dogs tomorrow.