Owning It

Oprah has one.




A declutter guru, that is. And if Oprah has one, then they must be all the rage.



It isn’t too far off to assume that if your physical space is a hot mess, so is your brain. And if you can declutter your thoughts, rooms, closets and freezer space, good things will come. And one doesn’t need a celebrity self-help healer of all things empowering to tell us what we already know.


Accumulation of crap breeds crappy feelings of failure, self-loathing and inadequacy.
It’s just like everything else in life; organizing, color-coding, filing, zoning and purging loads of said crap is way easier said than done.


Now for those of you who know me, you know I can hoard a thing or two. And according to Oprah’s go-to-guru of all things clutter, Peter Walsh, I am one of the worst kinds of “road blocking my way to happiness” accumulators. That’s right, I’m a Knowledge Clutterer.


What’s a Knowledge Clutterer you might ask? Beats me. Until I looked it up, I had no idea, and evidently we are the type of people that need to get over ourselves already.


Something is telling me Mr. Walsh and I would not be fast friends.


Those of us who are resisting the digital age of organization and stark vast wastelands of nothingness except a Plexiglas screen are really just egomaniacs who need to relax and trust in Wikipedia, Sparks Notes and e-readers. By “stockpiling” books and literary periodicals, aka having your own library, a knowledge clutterer believes “that if she owns the book, then she owns the knowledge, even if she never reads the book or takes it off the shelf,” Mr. Walsh informs us.


This is where I inform Mr. Walsh, your damn straight I own my knowledge. It took me years and years to get it, and yes, I OWN it, literally and figuratively, so I can put it on a shelf if I want to.
Other poor per perpetrators of intellectual hoarding and pretentiousness are book club members; enthusiasts of coffee table tomes on interior design; and worst of all, recent college grads wanting to show off their feminist poetry collections.


Y’all, I’m serious. You can’t make this stuff up.


Now, to make matters worse, I am also a Sentimental Clutterer-slash-Family Historian.


Me, along we all those besotted parents and ‘women of a certain age’ who have experienced loss tend to hoard all things family-centric. These items are, but not limited to, family heirlooms, grade school projects, school yearbooks, pre-school art and art projects of all kinds. Now, if you, like me can’t seem to unload grandmas’ Peruvian 1950’s cordial glasses or your kid’s 4th grade giant squid made out of paper-mache and a 7up bottle that took first prize, then it’s about time you start, according to Mr. Walsh, establishing a hierarchy of value.


This means the objects that mean the most stay, but only if they can fit in one box. I guess these means my grandfather’s samurai sword he brought back from fighting in the south Pacific during World War II must go, along with my Mama’s turn of the century glass china cabinet. Looks like grandpa’s tax return from 1982 may be the only thing left in the hierarchy to fit in the box after all.


I’m also, it seems, a behind Closed Doors (as in don’t open that closet, you may lose consciousness if something falls on your head) Clutterer, as well.


The only Clutterer I am not is a Bargain Shopper/Coupon Hoarding Clutterer. I have my Aunt Pam to thank for that one. All you have to do is stop by my house and I’ll feed you pot stickers with a side of Rotel, that she picked up as part of a year’s supply at Costco last September. This was after spotting a yellow sign that simply read: 29 cents.


Now, unlike Mr. Walsh, I’ll admit I am not a certified clutter expert. I’m not really an expert on anything for that matter, but I will tell you I feel a little foolish when I take all the declutter guru’s advice and ask my hoarded objects tough questions.


Take my plastic spatula shaped like Mickey, for example. How does it make me feel? Does it bring me happiness? I’ll tell you how it makes me feel, tired. And no, it doesn’t bring me happiness. But when the kids wake up at the crack of dawn to stare at me while I try and sleep I might need the dang thing to flip a pancake or two, seeing as my other three spatulas are either in the dishwasher dirty, stuck in a flower pot outside somewhere, or just plain missing.


But I know, I know… I could use more clear space in my home as well as in my head. I am sure it would help spur on creativity and ease problem solving like all the experts tell me. I would love to banish boxes, unload unwanted magazines, and dump a bunch of crap and call it a day. I really, really would.


I just need to find time, not a value system.


For now, I have zero problems deferring (yes, I have a load a wet wash that’s been hanging out a full day waiting to get in the dryer and a stack of dirty dishes in the sink.) I also don’t care that I’m a rebel, as in you can’t make me do anything I don’t really want to (as I step over a pile of wet towels to read one of my real books) and if I’m a perfectionist (seeing as how I can’t clean all the bathrooms why clean only one) so be it.


I’ve lived with cramped space in my head, sandy floors and tooth paste crusted sinks for 43 years, along with a library full of books and have gotten along just fine.
In fact, more than fine.


And I have no problem owning that.

Welcome to the Jungle

Where did she go?
This is the mos t pressing question in my life now, and believe me I have plenty.Of questions, that is. Where is my Stila Illuminating Tinted moisturizer?
What happened to my gold aviator sunglasses? I usually finally find them where I lost them…on top of my head.
Why can’t I locate my Coach boots, the ones with the brass side buckles, my Marc Jacobs silvery eyeliner or my favorite cuff, the one with an octopus adorned with teeny tiny orange crystals all over it? Where is any and all the loose change from the counter, in my purse and multiple old handbags stuffed in my closet? Where is my phone, iPad and coordinating chargers and the last Little Debbie and my only Coke Zero, which I thought I had cleverly hidden way back in the fridge?
I don’t seem to be missing any dirty laundry, dirty dishes, dirty looks or dust bunnies.
I do know who has “borrowed” them, of course. And therein lies the rub?
Just where did my little girl go?
My “little girl” was born 14 years and 6 months ago. She was stubborn, willful and wishy-washy from the start. She decided to come three days early– as soon as I sat down at Ruth’s Chris Steak House in Birmingham where her father and I tried to get in one last meal of peace and quiet to steel ourselves for the 18 years of drama, happiness, headaches and family fun soon to follow. Seriously, y’all. I didn’t even get my black cloth napkin stretched over my enormous belly or get to order the side of creamed spinach I was craving.
Then, she decided after 16 hours in the hospital that she didn’t want to come out after all. This is when they sent us home Christmas morning with all sorts of prescriptions to help me sleep “through” contractions even though not a single pharmacy was open. It didn’t take long before I was back in walking around and around the halls trying to coax her out. Three days, folks. Three whole days for her to decide she was ready. And she’s been at a full sprint ever since.
Now, I’m the one who’s not ready.
Actually, I take it back. The day her head spun around a full 180 and sparks flew out of her eyes with rage when I said there was no way I was running through the Starbucks drive through for a tall Caramel Ribbon Crunch Crème Frappuuccino with extra Crunch that costs as much as an ala carte side of creamed spinach from a fancy steak house, I was scared, y’all. Like, seriously frightened.
I cringe, and then secretly cry, when she says something hurtful to me…. knowing it’s hurtful…which hurts even more.
I have a silent pity party when she shuts me out, slinks off to her room or stares at her phone when I try to ask about her day.
My heart breaks just a little every time she grows a little more distant and a little farther away.
Charlie has a theory that this is all God’s plan. That just when they have stolen your heart so utterly and completely that you absolutely refuse to let them out into the big, wide world without you, they become raging, hormonal, back-talking, brooding, unpleasant teenagers who “borrow” all your stuff and are only nice when they need money. Now, you are picturing quiet Saturdays, available cash, noon time naps without slamming doors, civil conversations that don’t lead to screaming matches and a welcome lack of obscene charges for constant text overages. Don’t let the back door hit ya, right?
My mom agrees with this theory wholeheartedly, though she believes, as a devout Catholic, God has a wicked sense of humor. Evidently, we bounce right back to our agreeable, fun-loving, and family-oriented-selves just weeks before we leave for college. Then we never call home or visit.
But for me, the more and more she talks back, expresses herself, the more and more I don’t want her to grow up anymore and leave.
When she says, “You don’t understand me,” I want to be there when she says yes, “You do. You did all along.”
I don’t even mind the nasty looks or the eye rolls so much because sometimes I sneak in and watch her sleep, just like I did when she was little. And she looks just like she always has, an angel, my little angel.
Don’t get me wrong. There are days, actually multiple times a day, when I look at this 5’9” stranger in front of me and ask myself, “Who is this person and where did my little girl go?” The one who wanted to cuddle constantly, always told me she loved me before she went to sleep, craved my attention, sought my opinion, and told me what I wanted to hear…that I was the best and most wonderful mom in the world…. not that she hated me, that I was clueless, that I didn’t care or want to understand her anymore and never will.
But that’s just the point.
She’s doing what she is supposed to do. She’s questioning, stretching, making mistakes, having regrets, experiencing joy and pain…hourly, at the same time. She is squashing fear, trying to understand anger and when and how to suppress it, pondering, brooding, falling down, getting up and trying to make sense of senseless things while not losing faith in her future. She is doing what every single one of us did before her.
She’s becoming a grown-up.
And I am here, and will always be, along for the jungle ride…no matter how bumpy, quick, jagged, uneven, or rough.
I love you baby, girl.
I can’t wait to see the amazing woman you are destined to grow up to be.
And I can’t wait to see where you go.

Home

"One place understood helps us understand all places better," Eudora Welty.

(photo of author watering her grass at home in Jackson, Mississippi.)- PHOTO/Eudora Welty LLC.


I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching lately; trying to figure out how to raise children in challenging times. The way I remember it, growing up was so much simpler than it is today. And with every generation that ticks by, we lose even more of an appreciation for the smaller, quieter things in life. To me, innocence is becoming as fleeting and as fine as the white blur of the blown dandelion weed.
I have, and take with me always, the sweetest recollections of my youth. But if I am honest, I’ve let the bad memories fall to the wayside and held on tight to the good for dear life. I was thinking about the simple pleasures of small-town living the other day.
See, most of my early memories involve spending summers at my grandparents’ house in Colbert 15 miles short of Athens. Many are postcard picture-perfect: seeking shade under the leaves of a giant Magnolia tree, thick as molasses and smelling just as sweet; trapping fireflies in Mason jars at dusk; picking collards and corn straight out from the dirt of Papa’s garden.
There are some memories that are quite opposite. They’re what bad dreams are made of: my brother catching my thigh instead of a bass with a triple hook near the neighbors pond; my Mama coming at me with the angry, hot tip of a match in one hand and a pair of rusty old tweezers in the other as she extracts a tick the size of a ripe blackberry from my sunburned skin.
Mainly, I remember the unyielding heat that seemed to seep directly up from the stubborn red Georgia clay, wrap itself around me and then stick like Cling wrap all day without a hint of relief.
The only time I would find any respite was when my Mama would send me down to the basement.
This is a huge testament to how badly I wanted to escape the heat because I was deathly scared of that dark, musty hole that held up the house. It was bottomline-Hitchcock-scary down there. Mildewed, damp mattresses crept out from dark corners, and Vidalia onions swung at your head from pantyhose like gauntlets on your way to the avocado green deep freezer shoved in the way, way back.
I guess living through the Great Depression is enough to convince someone never to throw anything away. And this includes various items like heads of cabbage, bags of sheered corn, Cool-Whip containers filled with whatnots. But what I was looking for was usually located to the right and stacked up like a silver gem of a holy offering. There they were in all of their crystallized, frozen, frosty glory. Stacks upon stacks of old aluminum ice trays filled with frozen water.
I’m not sure my grandparents ever got a freezer with an ice-maker before they passed. I’d like to think it wouldn’t have mattered. I’d still take those dreaded, cautious steps down to the basement and bring up a few trays on a hazy, humid, hot day.
Now that we’re a little bit older, all of our memories, even exploring creepy family cemeteries and scary dark basements, are just as sacred as the good ones. They’ve now bled, blended and run together to form more of a feeling – an essence – that cannot be defined.
I want that for my girls.
I want a lot of things for them, actually.
I want to teach them to be kind and real.
Not hard and always right.
I want them to ask questions, not assume answers.
I want them to listen, really listen, to others and always have an open mind.
I want a lot of things for them that are increasingly more difficult in a world where bigger is better, faster is key and empathy, a true understanding of our place in the human world, takes a back seat.
It seems lately, as I try and find that delicate balance between sheltering and teaching, I have been thinking a lot about Eudora Welty. She left for NYC as a young woman – pencil in one hand, camera in the other – but didn’t stay for very long.
She came back home to Jackson when her father died and did not leave until she drew her very last breath.
I think that is how most of us think of her. A Pulitzer-winning Southern author who loved, wrote and immortalized the small town South. But what she struggled with and wrote about is still
relevant today, especially as we try and guide our children through a world that isn’t similar to the one we were nurtured in.
Can a person be daring and fulfilled living a sheltered and simple life?
She answered this best in her book, On Writing:
“I am a writer who came from a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life. For all serious daring starts from within.”
I love that. Daring comes from within.
See, Eudora Welty spent a lot of time writing about place. One quote that resonates with me is, “People give pain, are callous and insensitive, empty and cruel but place heals the hurt and soothes the outrage and fills the terrible vacuum that these human beings make.”
Seek a place, not people, not things, I will tell them when they are hurt or questioning or feeling alone in a world that is moving by them at a faster pace. Listen, observe and find peace in that place you will carve out for yourself when it’s time.
We do live in one of the most wondrous places of all.
And it's called, quite simply, home.