Fear and Dread

Sorry for the dramatic titles of the last two blog posts, but I thought this would be the perfect sequel to "Indecision and Inertia," in which I likened myself to an anvil.

After writing that last piece while my family was out of town, tooling around San Francisco and having a wonderful time on Google bikes, etc., I decided to dedicate a few hours to understanding inertia better. I collected six pages of notes on the subject. My favorite: someone asked an expert,"How do you overcome inertia?" His two word answer was very scientific: "By force."

Armed with a new understanding, I forced myself into motion in my bedroom, which has long been a difficult space for me to organize. I have a lot of heavy pieces of wood furniture there: a corner desk unit (3 parts), a rather tall dresser, two bedside tables, a very large headboard and footboard framing a king size bed, a bookcase, a treadmill, a filing cabinet with a roll top structure above it, and, last but not least, an armoir.

I know what you're thinking: a bedroom should only be for sleeping and associated acitivities. Get rid of all of that stuff! But it isn't the furniture stuff that was bothering me -- it was the stuff within the stuff, like clothes I never wear, other family members' clothes that need mending or hemming, etc. etc.

I've cleaned and organized this space many, many times over the years, only to watch it deteriorate into chaos again. But I am apparently a master at repacking. I take everything out and put everything back in...instead of tossing everything that should be tossed. Oh, I'm not a hoarder! (Doth I protest too much?) Really, I am not, but I must be really good at sorting and putting away, so that it looks neat and tidy, for a while at least. I amaze myself sometimes with how much content I can condense into a small space.


So this time, recognizing that my room in general and my closet in particular were areas that awakened within me fear and dread, I took courage and plunged in. It took me a couple of hours to convince myself to do this, picturing in my mind the image of a giant train rusted to an unused stretch of track.It took a tremendous amount of force to turn the wheels an inch, four inches, one complete rotation, the track groaning, the train grinding and heaving. After I had been going a while, and could see the carpeted floor of the closet, I actually used a garden rake (the kind with flexible steel tines) to gather bits and pieces from the closet floor. (A certain daughter has been using this cloistered space for some time as a sleeping/reading/snacking place.) I employ unorthodox methods sometimes when cleaning house.

I had to reach a stopping point that night -- it was not to be a one day project. I have returned to it twice since. But the train is in motion. I have broken through the inertia, at least in that one area. And I am giving things I never use the heave-ho this time. Why store it in the unlikely event I will ever need it again? Part of having faith in the future is letting go of the artifacts of the past.

Everything in life analogous to something else. Lessons everywhere!