Attribute it to Covid’s stay-at-home restrictions or my advancing age, but I decided I needed to clear out stuff. From my office. From the catch-all storage room. From my closets filled mainly with clothes that no longer fit me. From countertops, drawers, cupboards. I’m not sure what came over me, especially since I’m a great procrastinator. I had honestly wanted to do this for the last two years, ever since I turned eighty. But short of taking a pile of papers and books off one counter and piling them onto another, I found excuses. My writing was the pretext. Retreating to an uncluttered studio, writing or just sitting and staring out the window wouldn’t elicit guilt.
So, where did this sudden energetic urge to tackle the stuff finally come from? Picasso. Yes, that’s right…Picasso. I read an article regarding procrastination in which he supposedly said, “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.” Horrifying.
Images scrambled through my mind of my children, Genevieve and Jeff, or my grandchildren coming into my office to discover every inch of the counters covered with old drafts, books, unfiled correspondence, old photographs, and well-handled manilla folders filled with notes for my book, Bill Moss: Fabric Artist & Designer, all on one counter. And a similar pile on another counter with notes for my memoir, Mountain Girl, along with newspaper articles, old CDs, a Native American basket with small stones from various travels. A tin box with cigar bands my son Jeff designed containing remnants of cigars I smoked many moons ago. Covering the entire end of another counter, a pile of drawings and architectural blueprints for the new house built two years ago.
After facing this deluge, my children would start opening drawers, cupboards, and lastly, two tall file cabinets overflowing with folders from various nonprofit boards I served on. Folders filling one drawer were filled with notes and papers from my attendance at Spalding University’s MFA Writing Program. Another drawer was brimming with family folders and horses’ and dogs’ papers.
By this time Jeff and Genevieve would be ready to haul all the stuff to the dump or have a bonfire. But they would hesitate, as I do now, afraid something important might be thrown out. They would then proceed to carefully examine each piece of paper and every photo, cursing me.
I cringe at this thought.
So, right after breakfast one morning, I headed for my office. But as always, a bump slows down the process. After all, there’s the right stuff. The free stuff. Cool stuff. Useful stuff (for someone) and trash. Picking it up, examining and considering which piece of paper or object falls in the stuff category takes time. At the end of the day, a large black plastic garbage bag was filled. But still, there were still categorized stacks of stuff covering my counters.
Another day?