365 | the most ridiculous thing

001/365 | Tuesday 5 November 2019, Prowlandia - It is Day 33 of my cycle. My bleed is imminent, and I am feeling fragile and on edge. Reminding myself to be gentle, to be soft--with myself, with others. A quiet day. A few moments of tears springing to my eyes for no real reason except Day 33-ness.

002/365 | Wednesday 6 November 2019, Prowlandia - Though Mads rides a bike sans training wheels at Grandma's house, he's convinced himself that his Batman bike is too heavy to ride without them. So, when one training wheel rattles off on our morning walk/ride, he is thrown into crisis mode. I tell him: "Look, I know it sucks to be forced to do something before you think you're ready. It so completely sucks. Believe me, I know--that's all adulthood is, bud. You just have to get on your bike and ride. Maybe it will be hard. Maybe it won't." I walk his bike for him and give him some space and time to wail and rant and then, soon enough, he's riding.

003/365 | Thursday 7 November 2019, NCMA - "Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light. Tragedy is the most ridiculous thing." - Frida Kahlo 

004/365 | Friday 8 November 2019, Wake Zone, Apex - A woman approached us before we'd settled at the cafe, and Attie attempted to greet her in the enthusiastic Attie way (i.e. knocking her down to slime her with a film of kisses and love nips). I held her harness tight, foiling her efforts. "She's in training," I told the woman. "Training for what?" she asked. "To be a good girl," I said.

005/365 | Saturday 9 November 2019, Phydeaux, Cary - Grandma asks me out of the blue, "Are you still crazy about your husband?" I feel myself grin and blush. I gush, "Yes! When he walked in the door last night, after a day of not seeing him, I was knocked over by how handsome he is. I couldn't take my eyes off him." Grandma says, "He is handsome, but there's something else..." And I know what she means. It's the something else that counts.

006/365 | Sunday 10 November 2019 - I knew when I prepped November in my daybook (read: bullet journal) that I'd run out of pages before the month was out. Daybook Volume 4 has covered the shortest time span of any daybook yet. I think Ryder Carroll would say I'm doing it right.

Julie & Michelle (& Julia) & Meat & Trailers

In the course of our marriage (10 years) Wolfman and I have done a lot of talk about living adventurously, about making our life together as a made thing, building it in our hands, together, making something. We've talked of WWOOFing in New Zealand or Norway. We've talked of living in a yurt in the Appalachians. We've talked of opening a cafe/herb shop called NAME REDACTED (as in, I don't want to share the name because we haven't given up on that dream, not that the cafe would be called, in all caps, NAME REDACTED).

None of these projects have come to fruition; none have even come close to happening. These have just been dreams we've woven together, aloud, over coffee in the morning, laying together in bed at night. We are dreamers, but too practical and poor. We've loved and made a baby, that magnificent creature who fills and defines our lives, but with the exception of our odd senses of style and creepy, demonic laughs, we've lived a pretty conventional life. We've settled in (what became) Money Magazine's Best Place to Live 2015, worked hard to pay bills and with whatever energy and money we had left over after the working and bills, made haphazard attempts at celebrating our life.

I'm reading Julie Powell lately, poor much-maligned Julie Powell. I finished Julie & Julia (while also watching Julia Child videos on Youtube with my husband and son) a few weeks ago and am now reading her follow-up, Cleaving. Julie Powell is a messy gal, about which she is not shy in admitting and not particularly apologetic. And I don't mean she is messy in that self-deprecating way we're trained to believe will make us more likable and relatable; she is messy in the nitty gritty way that is answered in horrified and disgusted Goodreads reviews. Despite all this, despite even the painful extramarital affair which makes up the bulk of her second book, I can't help but feel Julie Powell is a kindred spirit. I admire her. Yes, following Faith Lehane's "Want. Take. Have." as a personal, life-long, mantra is ultimately not the best way to live (wasn't this the lesson Faith had to learn on Buffy and Angel over and over again?). But, I recognize the impulse to shake up your life, to do something that gives it meaning, and I admire Julie Powell's ability to follow through.

I never worked on a sheep farm in Norway, can barely even picture what that life might have been like. I never built a yurt in the Blue Ridge mountains. I never traveled. I never wrote. I've got all the dreams in my pocket, but I lack follow through. (I cry when I hear Kermit sing "Rainbow Connection," the INFP theme song.) I never get further in these fantasy lives than scribbling in my journal some version of the thing and a "wouldn't that be neat?," "if only."

In Julie & Julia, Julie writes of how perplexed family and friends were as she tortured herself torturing lobsters and roaming the city in search of offal. Why? Why do this thing? And why force yourself to do it in only a year? Why make things hard on yourself? Well, writes Julie, it has less to do with the readers of her blog (though she does cite them) and more with the need to DO SOMETHING, to not resign herself to a humdrum little existence but to shake things up, to give herself a challenge and to discover herself through that self-inflicted adversity and strain. If she didn't do this, if she didn't complete it, if she gave up--who would she be,what would she be? Nobody. Nothing. And, of course, this isn't true. She'd still be Julie Powell, wife and cat mom and doer of the things in her life she did do, but I wouldn't be writing about her now, would I?

And, again, a couple years later, after she'd written a book of her first challenge, after she'd turned the frustration and panic and maggots in her kitchen into a bonafide success, she took on yet another pipe dream--she became an apprentice at a butcher shop. She learned the craft of boucherie for no other reason than that it had always interested and intimidated her and she was bedeviled by the desire to not settle into the status quo.

All I do is settle into the status quo. It is my great burden and my darkest shadow, this incapacitation--which has all kinds of roots and stems and knots which are long and, frankly, boring, and which I will not get into here. But, take it from me, I am a classic settler, with the briefest moments of inspired, spasmodic kicks against the cage I build myself (I married that good-looking man, after all, and we made this beautiful baby together).

Prowlandia is my Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Tiny Living is my boucherie and charcuterie. And, let me tell you, if you were reading this in my memoir or watching a movie version of this starring a more adorable version of me, Mila Kunis or Amanda Seyfried maybe (oh I flatter myself), you would be saying to yourself "why is she complaining so much, what a whiny drag, even Mila Kunis can't make here likable," and I am sorry/not sorry about that. Unraveling the status quo you've quilted around yourself like a protective cocoon is hard fucking work. I am in the midst of deprogramming a lot of fearful bullshit from my mind that I've been carrying for far too long. And, also, living in a tiny home with a man, a boy, an 80 pound meathead dog, and a cat who just MUST eat at 5 in the morning is hard, even if it's a life you've chosen for yourself, and turning a dusty lot filled with broken glass and, probably, ticks into a Wolfpeople utopia is hard fucking work, too. I'm dealing with some stuff. It's hard. But, I'm doing it. Wolfman and I are making something, with our hands, together, and it sucks, and it's glorious.

Boredom and Frustration in Prowlandia

My dishware and kitchen appliances have been culled (in a haphazard Konmari that probably cannot even be called that--both practicality and joy were consulted in the weeding), and yet I stand in the narrow dinette of our tiny home, Prowler, looking into my blissfully open cabinetry (the heavy mirrored doors were the first thing to go--I broke one in the grass as I tossed it out of the trailer in my haste to be rid of them and then continued to walk the yard barefoot all summer, forgetfully pushing my luck), defeated. I've always wanted open cabinetry in my kitchen, and here it is. The only thing keeping my grandmother from flipping her lid over the tiny home is that I've been talking about it for years, and here it is.

But, it's tiny.

What looked like generous-to-the-point-of-unfairness (like the game was rigged for us) storage when Prowler was empty I now realized, in this moment, was shit. How am I going to fit all our stuff in here? Meanwhile Wolfman is outside in the sticky heat building a makeshift fence, alone, and I feel guilty and frivolous for focusing on how this open cabinetry will look (because it is the first thing we will see when we arrive home). I think--has Instagram and Pinterest mashed my brain to useless goop? But then I think, no, this is important; I'm making a home, not just a place to sleep and fart. And then my little guy--one of the people I'm making this home for (the VIP, actually) interrupts my furrowed brow with his need.

He's bored. He wants me to play with him---the make-believe game where his cousin's Rapunzel doll (that's me) doesn't realize the new airplane she just bought is actually a Transformer (him) and then, eventually, after the shock and confusion are settled, they must work together to defeat Darth Vader.

It's the same scenario every time, the same game, which is part of the reason I'm reluctant to play but, also, where am I going to hide this ugly propane burner now that all my cabinets are blissfully open?

It's really easy for Wolfman and I to spout tough love in our morning (and afternoon, evening, before bed, geez we're obsessed) talks about our son. "He's just going to have to get used to being a little bored. He'll figure out what to do with his boredom eventually." It's another thing to face it head on as you're bleeding and sweating and standing in the place that is supposed to be your home, your hearth, and it looks like nothing but a jumbled collection of odds and ends unearthed after a natural disaster, a volcano maybe.

Perhaps I'm not conveying to you the existential dread I experienced standing in that dinette, looking at all the objects before me, cataloging all the objects still at home and thinking, not for the first time, this is not going to work. Also: I'm crazy. Also: I'm damaging my son. All these uncertainties and fears crashing down on me in my own voice and also the voices of people I hate, people whom I have fought who take up residence in my head when I'm sad or scared.

After the third or fourth "I'm bored," I snapped at Mads. I wasn't particularly cruel or harsh, but I was exasperated and frustrated. I spoke to him as a person, not a mother.

Yes, of course, motherhood did not negate my personhood, and so perhaps I should not be so hard on myself. But, motherhood did elevate my personhood, or maybe just complicate it. Motherhood, at the very least, has added layers to my personhood. My son, Mads, does not know me as Michelle. He knows that is my name, but it is not what he calls me. He knows his dad calls me Shelly, but, again, that's not Mads' name to use for me. And he knows practically nothing of when I was a little girl called, dismissively, Mouse. No, Mads knows me as Mom-Momma-MOM!  My role in his life is a big one, arguably the biggest one (we once shared a body, after all). My relationship with him will build the parameters and foundation of so many of his relationships, particularly with women. And my voice will become his inner voice. If he is ever standing in a kitchen, mid-move, feeling overwhelmed, I don't want the voice in his head to be one of exasperation and frustration, directed inward--frustration with a situation, sure, but never himself. I don't want him carrying my very particular and dramatically weary sigh with him through manhood like a boulder strapped to his back. (Have you ever heard me sigh? I could do a voice acting spot where all I do is sigh, my sigh is that pronounced and definitive.)

Wolfman and I are devoted to kind, patient, respectful parenting of our son. But we have our limits and shortcomings. Very occasionally one or the other of us will use a careless astringent tone with Mads, and I become a child again myself. I hear it and step away from myself, and I am Mouse, shame and anger bubbling up in my belly--anger at the unfairness and tyranny of adults. Then, in combination with whatever irritant caused that tone and those words in the first place, guilt--a wave of it. What can I do in that moment but tell Mads, "I've hit my limit, bud. I'm overwhelmed. I'm hot. I'm cranky. I'm bleeding. I'm sweating. I don't feel good." I'm sorry. Give me a minute. I am just not feeling up to the challenge of motherhood in this particular moment.

At six years old, Mads has a lot of compassion for me and my moods (fears, shortcomings). He also, however, reserves the right to be bummed out by them and a little exasperated himself.

I read one parent's account in How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk. He wrote, "the more comfortably you can accept bad feelings, the easier it is for kids to let go of them. I guess you could say that if you want to have a happy family you better be prepared to permit the expression of a lot of unhappiness."

"I'm bored," is not my favorite thing to hear my son say. But I'm sure he doesn't love it when I say, "I'm frustrated." Not every human emotion is pleasant, and none of us are perfect. Mads knows his parents are not infallible. We're just people, but we're his people. He's not being raised inside a floating incandescent bubble in the sky by angels with perfect teeth. He's being raised by Mom and Dad, whose teeth are less than perfect, and who struggle with the awkwardness of humanity and the caprice of bad feelings and are honest with him about it. Just as I have to be honest with myself and face the facts that not every kitchen appliance I own is display worthy.

Dreams Don't Come True (with kittens)

The fierce and adoring Grandma, the day-dreamy and whimsical me, and Mads (kicking and punching in my belly)

The Breaking Bad News With Baby Animals postcard I sent to Grandma the other day announced (with kittens), “Dreams don’t come true.” It just happened to be the one I grabbed from my stationery box, but also, it seemed a particularly astute message for her, regarding me. My grandma had a lot of big dreams for me--she has dreamt bigger, longer, wider, in more vivid technicolor for me than any other person ever has, myself included. And I wonder: if she is disappointed (and how can she not be), is that disappointment directed at me or at the unfair, chaotic, unsympathetic world in which I live. Is it the economy’s fault that when my name is Googled one finds - nothing -. Or is it mine?--my timidity, my lack of ambition and resolve, my belief that the world is an unthinking, unfeeling place and a person like me never had a chance?

I never became a writer (not in the way that counts, anyway). I don’t have any money and struggle constantly upstream. Since high school, I’ve managed to keep my figure more or less, but even my once beautiful mop of wild, curly hair has since diminished into a straggly, thin, lackluster mess.

My grandmother believed me to be not only a great beauty, but a great mind. And here I am toiling away in the service industry--I am a retail automaton--the highlight of my work day when a sales rep brings in grocery store deli cookies as a bribe. I am dropped off at work most days, wearing a backpack and carrying a lunch bag, like a child.

Has my lack of success and mobility hurt my grandmother, the one who dreamed for me?

I think about this a lot because now I dream. I dream not for myself but for my son. Even if I make nothing of myself, I have made him--a great beauty and a great mind. How could he not make more of himself than I have? It’s so obvious he’s destined for great things. He is better than me. I love him, and his dad loves him. I was damaged, you know, by people who did not dream for me so ardently as my selfless, obsessed grandmother. But my son--he’s not damaged. He doesn’t need to struggle.

But what if he does anyway?

When I talk about, ponder aloud, the things my son will become, am I doing him a disservice? Should I shut my mouth and just give him the space to be and breathe and become?


Or, is my dreaming for him a vote of confidence, one which will bolster and sustain him when he's a man making his way in the world? Will he pack my dreams for him into his rucksack when he leaves my arms and home to go to college or travel the world or protest tyranny or divide and conquer or whatever it is he will do?

Grandma's dreams for me have certainly never felt like a burden, but they haven't done much to propel me forward either (through no fault of my grandmother's). And, I suppose my attitude regarding my son's future, the weight on which I put success, depends in part on what my definition of success (for him or in general) is. Do I want him to be happy more often than he is sad? Absolutely. Or, at least, content. Do I want him to give and receive love freely and gracefully? Yes, of course. Do I want him to have money? -- Well, it's not the most important thing compared to contentment and love, but I imagine having just the right amount of money might make his days run that much smoother.

I consider the example I set for him in reaching those goals. I am hard on myself, often aloud. I get frustrated not because my life is not as my grandmother imagined it, but because it is not as I imagined/imagine it. I'm not talking about my family, my home, my town, or even my job; I'm talking about the little daily burdens and messes that trip me up--the unending dishes, double booking events for my son, poorly planned and hastily tossed together holiday and birthday celebrations, the inability to consistently schedule in time for my creative pursuits (like this), the list of projects and To Dos with not a thing crossed off.

My son has witnessed me cry and tantrum because we arrive at the Dorthea Dix sunflower field one week too late and discover all the flowers have shriveled up and died. He has heard and felt me snap because I wake too late and now must hurry through my day without transcribing that nagging thought/reverie/idea onto paper.

And, my son has wailed at a busy playground at the realization that he and Ella won't be able to play on the swings at the same time, that image he held of the two of them side-by-side and in the air after a week apart, squashed. He has groaned, "I can't do anything," and "it won't be perfect," when attempting to paint a portrait of himself doing barre work at his ballet studio. He has the paper, the pink and grey paints, but when he puts brush to paper he is dissatisfied and hurt.

I tell him, "there's no such thing as perfect," and when he still grumps and thrusts his paintbrush down ask, "Do you believe me?"

This is the work of his childhood and my parenthood (and adulthood). All my dreams for him, however loose and magnanimous, will mean nothing if we cannot get over this hump and heap of defeat regarding the disparity between expectation and reality--our imaginings of what life should look like and what we should be capable of, he and I both.

The lesson, of course, the one I am learning on behalf of myself and my son is not that dreams don't come true, but: Dreams Aren't Real (with kittens).

Madmartigan, 5 Years Old | bee vomit sandwiches

I can only save so many little scraps of paper. I wish I could save them all. I wish, actually, that he wouldn't draw on little scraps of paper at all but use the primary composition notebook decorated and designated as his journal (my one effort at making him too much like me, I admit freely and without shame). But, no. He can't be boxed in by the constraints of a bound notebook. When he has an idea, he must scribble it immediately, on whatever medium is nearest--including the whiteboard where we write grocery lists and the little Melissa & Doug easel slate board. I can't save those masterpieces at all except to take pictures. Actually, he prefers the whiteboard and slate because he can so easily erase that which does not fit his vision. I worry sometimes about his erasing habit and gently remind him, "Don't worry about perfection; nothing is perfect," especially when he expresses frustration before erasing--with his fingers or the felt brick that looks transported directly from my elementary classrooms. Without pausing for anguish or reflection he just says, "It's not very...as I planned it to be," and continues.

He draws mostly at the kitchen table, sometimes in the car and so we keep a tote bag of spiral notebooks and art supplies there next to his seat. Sometimes, he begins drawing the moment he wakes, his eyes barely open against the yellow kitchen light. More often it happens mid-morning, after breakfast, after Scooby Doo or Rescue Bots, before our morning walk as a way to pass the time while we clean breakfast dishes and get ready to leave the house. Sometimes, he does not pick up a pencil (or pen, crayon, marker, chalk--he does not seem particular, really) until the evening in that quiet space of time Wolfman designates for art and music and conversation.

What does he draw? I've mentioned his "weather reports" taped to my walls. He draws maps. Lots of maps and mazes. He draws intricate designs for implements and tools, "for help," based on things he's seen out in the world, like the lifts used to stack high shelves at home improvement stores. (Often, I have not even realized these objects and machines have made such an impression on him until they show up on his paper, a version of them drawn by his hand.) He drew elaborate plans for Halloween costumes in September and October (at one point, his cardboard and paper mâché Hulk Buster armor half-way complete, he decided he wanted to be "No Noggin," from Curious George's Halloween Boofest, and Wolfman gamely discussed with him practical ways to accomplish the headless effect while trick-or-treating, all of which Mads drew). In one of those quiet morning art sessions, he set down to the slate board and without saying a word began drawing something that Wolfman pointed out upon completion looked like a rune casting circle, spookily so.

What I collect and save of his drawings are not family portraits or landscapes of our homes and trees and flowers with a grinning sunshine overhead, no horses or dogs or mermaids, none of the things I drew as a child. I collect what appears to be Pollockian blue prints, and I awe at this mind.

On the Seaboard caboose in pjs made by Granmommie

NCMA

selfie!

DJ's Berry Pumpkin Patch

Dance Party at the Cary Arts Center

About Mads, 5 Years & 3 Months Old:

• Mads sometimes requests that I read books backwards, particularly the ones we've read to memorization, and when I do, he belly laughs.
• At Tinkergarten, when Mads would not focus on the class activities because he was too intent on spraying things with the class-provided spray bottles I told him, "Martigan, I'm feeling a little exasperated about the water botle. Do you care?" He answered honestly and without malice, "No," and so what could I do but let it go.
• Mads gets bored quickly with the little kindergarten workbooks we sometimes use and will begin creating his own lessons. For example, on a shape-recognition page in which he is meant to trace all the diamonds, he does just that but alternating between his left and right hands, then using both hands at once, practicing his ambidextrousness and coordination.
• Mads says, "When I get too scared, by heart turns into a bat."
• He refers to honey as "bee vomit" (accurate, if crude) and requests a "butter and bee vomit" sandwich daily.
• Lately at bed time when I ask what or who he wishes to be before singing our version of Que Sera Sera instead of Batman or Flash, his old stand-bys ("will I be Batman, will I be cool?"), Mads requests "the lover," and then crawls into my lap for snuggles while I sing/ruminate about his future and all the hugs and kisses he will get and give.
• When he overhears an innocuous cuss word in conversation between his dad and granmommie, Mads interjects, "Oh yeah, I know a lot of badass words."
• In October, Mads attended his first yoga class and now refers to himself as a yogi and, if we ask, he'll lead Wolfman and me in morning sun salutations.
• With a little organizational help from his dad, Mads created a board game called, "Something's Near," the object of which is to move through a frightening land filled with ghosts, zombies, a banshee and other dread creatures to do battle at a castle with either a giant spider
• Mads favorite shows/movies lately: Power Rangers (especially Mighty Morphin and Ninja Steel), Scooby Doo (especially Aloha Scooby Doo), Transformers: Rescue Bots, Goosebumps (especially Night of the Living Dummy)
• Mads favorite books lately: Bruce Hale & Guy Francis' Clark the Shark books, Roger Hargreaves' Mr. Men & Little Miss books, Sick Simon by Dan Krall, anything we can find by Ben Hatke

Madmartigan, 5 Years Old | he says he doesn't want to grow up but already tells me stories about leaving me

As Martigan splashed in his bathtub the other night and I sat with him,  he told me this story (which I have elaborated only in language, not detail):

Mads and I are on a walk one day when he falls into a puddle. But the puddle is deep, a hole, a well. As he splashes around, he turns into a fish. I scoop him up and run home with him. Once home, I set up the biggest fish bowl I can find and place him inside, fretting, begging him to become a boy once again. He grows bigger every day and soon, I must release him into the sea. Every morning, I sit in a boat, not far from the shore, drinking coffee, reading, hoping to catch a glimpse of my sonfish. (I know him by the pattern of scales on his belly spelling out his name.) Not every day, but occasionally, he swims close to the boat and lets me pet him, and I plead with him to turn back into a boy and come home with me. The sea is big; there are sharks in its depths. One day in my boat, I see not my sonfish, but my fear, a shark, who swims close to my boat. I am afraid and distraught until the shark leaps out of the water and I see the scales on his belly--M.A.D.S. But now my sonfish is too big and powerful to live so close to the shore. After petting him and speaking to him one last time, I tow him out to the deep, dark sea, the Mariana Trench. I cut him loose and watch him swim away. He leaps out of the water one last time in goodbye, and now he is a whale.

5 years old & 34 years old

4 years old & 33 years old

3 years old & 32 years old

2 years old & 31 years old

1 year old & 30 years old

Shelly's 29th birthday, with her greatest birthday gift

Home & Konmari, pt. 1 | The Life-Stalling Habit of Worshipping Stuff

Marie Kondo is a witch. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up is truly that--magic(k). I read both her books in the beginning of the year (though I'm barely able to finish reading anything these days). I get Marie Kondo. She speaks to me, and I find I am often disappointed with the way people talk about Konmari. People, in the fashion of people, tend to focus on the practical and ignore (or openly disparage) the woo woo. People pretend this method has only to do with the tidying, when Marie Kondo herself describes it as "magic." Like she recommends, I really do say thank you to my dirty socks (and to my spoon after stirring honey into my tea, and to my computer after I type clumsily on it, and to my car after she settles safely into my drive way at the end of the day once more), and my relationship with all these things (all the things) is better because of it. 

I love that Marie Kondo's methods are based in animism. She says that each object in our life has a desire to be utilized and, therefore, loved by us. Each object in our life desires to serve us.  Okay, so maybe you're reading this and thinking to yourself, "my toothbrush is inanimate and this whole 'desires to serve me' thing is bogus." Fair enough. But. It does serve you, doesn't it? And therefore, isn't its purpose in being created to serve you? How far did that thing travel, through how many hands, across how many oceans and state lines, just to sit on your bathroom counter waiting to be held between your fingers and clean your teeth, an intimate job, twice daily. When we sit down to meals as a family, I paraphrase Thich Nhat Hanh aloud for my husband and child, "In this plate of food I see the Universe supports my existence." I believe the same about my copper tongue scraper, the mason jars I drink water from and store leftovers in, that little stool that sits beside my reading chair painted black and white with the pink wooden utters hanging underneath it. These things are manifestations of the Universe supporting me, healing me, quenching my thirst, making me laugh. 

I don't think I'd even finished Life Changing Magic... when I cleaned out my wardrobe. In my years of thrifting and working at my beloved little second-hand store, I'd accumulated quite a lot of clothing. I defended my overstuffed drawers and racks by telling my husband (and myself) that I was a collector. And yet, after throwing myself into a new job where I am frequently hucking forty-pound bags of cat litter and down on all fours wrangling dogs into harnesses, my daily wear became much more stream-lined, much more practical. The Type 4 of me puts up such a fight against practicality, but you're hard-pressed to find me wearing a dress these days, even on my days off work. So, I cleaned out my closet. I thought this would be the hardest part, but actually the process moved along swiftly once I got going. In the end, I culled my wardrobe by 50%. And though I still step into thrift stores about once a month, it is only once a month, and I am so much more discerning when I go. Often, I walk out with not a thing in my hands.

Like the wardrobe, I also had no problem cleaning out my old writing suitcase. In a tacky decorative suitcase, I had saved every single piece of writing I'd ever worked on--finished and unfinished--since high school. I thought I'd return to those pieces one day, edit them, spiff them up, or take bits and pieces of them to form something else--single lines, descriptions, pieces of dialogue. Instead, it went untouched in a corner of my room, and I actually fretted over the thought of dying and my husband and family sifting through all that nonsense. I chucked all but a couple pages--literally: two pages. Then, I donated the suit case.

Household objects--tchotchkes, mugs, wall hangings--have been the most difficult for me to sift through. I've been inspired by maximalist decorating my entire life. My grandmother keeps a proper Witchy Cottage, stuffed to the brim with books, plants, fish bowls, gargoyles, dolls, all the instruments Dumbledore kept in his office (I think my grandma inherited them after Dumbledore died), framed photos, unframed photos sticking out of the pages of books and tucked into the corners of mirrors, mirrors, ornate boxes and cabinets with tiny little drawers (all occupied), musical instruments, glass bottles in rainbow hues, specimen vials, rubber novelty bats hanging in the hall closet, faux butterflies and spiders and lizards and caterpillars and slugs pinned and glued to the walls and windows. I could go on. I love her house, every corner a surprise. I love her pink polka-dotted toaster and turquoise coffee maker. I love that the rainbow elephant I colored in kindergarten, the one the other kids made fun of me for, is still taped up in her kitchen. 

For a long time, I thought my house would look like this, but I didn't find my version of it as charming. Nor did my husband. I've gone through several declutterings--moving five years ago was one, then cleaning out the storage shed a year after moving--but we were still surrounded by an increasing amount of clutter. We have lived with so many things in corners gathering dust! The past couple years, the impermanence of our current living situation has been nagging at me and the amount of things I've accumulated in my adult life weighing me down. At the start of this year, I was ready to toss every single thing into garbage bags and start over, completely, radical minimalist style.

But, I know me. I know I am sentimental and animistic and place high value on objects. I know that if I were to get rid of everything without discernment, I would regret it later. Enter Marie Kondo and her ritualized tidying.

I am a seeker and collector of joy. I have already trained my mind and spirit to recognize moments of pure joy as I encounter them in my life--fleeting, small, winged things that are difficult to butterfly net. I have studied and practiced the art and sport of recognizing joy, savoring it, scribbling it down so I can return to it later. I know what joy feels like in the heart. I know what joy feels like in the body. I know what Marie Kondo means when she instructs to hold a garment in your hands and wait for your body's cues. Honestly, while reading her book, I couldn't help thinking her philosophy so easy and obvious, I should have already thought of it.

So, it should be done, right? Six months after reading her books and beginning my own Konmari, I should be sitting smug enlightened on the other side. Spoiler: I am not.

Watch this space for Pt. 2, Lessons Learned & Stumbled Over.