Declutter – Sidewalk Face

Lesson Not Taught

November 29, 2022by Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-Owl14 Comments

Reoccurring problem. My husband sees an empty space and fills it. For him, domestic space is like a supermarket parking lot. If you don’t see a car there, feel free to drive into the spot. To me, our domestic space is a like an apartment building with leased parking spaces. Only one item has legitimate claim to any given area. You cannot be where you don’t belong, or you will be towed away at your own expense.

At the end of our hallway is large desk size built in shelf. This space has been doing triple duty for more than two and half years. One third is where I store my two purses, next to that is overflow food storage, and next to that are hard drives. Don’t worry, the sugar does not comingle with the technology. They are separated by bins and baskets. As I write it out, this arrangement sounds strange. I wish it were differernt but who has the time and space to make things not weird.

So yesterday, both purses are lolling around in chairs making it hard to sit down. Tidying up, I gather them, walk them over to the purse basket and find a five-pound bag of whole wheat flour sitting in their spot! UGH! I am instantly annoyed. My kid wanders by, and I ask in a rather surly tone,

Did you put this here?!

No!

Just as I suspected, it’s dad! I am going to teach him a lesson.

My kid looks at me skeptically. Maybe even disapprovingly. I probably should heed the message in their body language, but the rush of frustration is already in full gallop, and I march the big bag of flour to his desk and deposit it in his chair. Now he will know what it is like to find a place you intend to use blocked by a ridiculous culinary obstacle.

I bide my time, waiting for him to need his computer. I am waiting for some type of outburst. Disappointed, nothing happens.

I check his chair and the flour is gone. It’s back on the shelf next to the purses where it belongs. I retrieve it and march it back to him.

Did you notice this on your chair? I demand.

I was wondering how that got there, he says totally nonchalant. It’s like it doesn’t matter one way or another. What’s so mysterious about a five-pound bag of flour showing up in your office? It doesn’t faze him. In his world, bags of flour being accidently deposited on office chairs is just a thing that can happen that needs no explanation, that jumpstarts no line of questioning, it forces no interrogation of fellow family members. This man cannot be taught a lesson!

I attempt to explain the outlandish violation and he says he has no idea that my purses go in a purse basket. He says he thought the whole thing was grocery storage.

What?!?

Well, here’s what. What I think of as our systems are really only my systems. He says now he knows and will not do it again.

That should make me happy, and it’s probably true as who wouldn’t want to avoid another run in with me in this state. But I am not satisfied. I wanted to make him be like me and he is not like me.

He is not like me.

This is a good thing. He doesn’t explode out of the blue. He doesn’t need organizational integrity to be ok. And it’s okay that I do create systems. I just need to understand that I am the person responsible for their maintenance. I am best suited for that, and he is best suited for not being a critical jerk.

I am the one who keeps not learning the lesson. I need to learn the lesson.

Sidewalk Face 1230 and 1231.

Declutter, Striving to Be Better

Save These

June 17, 2022by Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-Owl3 Comments

These Burning Man polaroids from 2002 made me smile, I look so carefree and cool. I’m glad someone took them because coolness is as elusive as a breeze on a summer night. Lovely but so fleeting. No sooner do you notice it then it’s gone.

The Story Behind the Photos

Imagine what you want is just outside the thickness of a camping tent wall. You are laying on top of a nylon sleeping bag that’s cozy in the cold but sticky in a greenhouse, which is your tent in the noonday sun, especially if you have a fever which you do. Everyone you know is outside having the most amazing fun that can be had, a fun so rare you can only get it right now, in this exact moment and location, but you are imprisoned by ill-timed ill health. The amount of pity you are wallowing in can be seen from outer space.

That was me a day before this photo. I think it was the flu. A fast acting one that cleared up as quickly as it came. I was only out of commission for a few days and still had enough time to have a blast. So grateful! It’s crazy how much one’s perception can shift in 24 hours depending on outer circumstances and the inner narrative response.

The Story Behind Finding the Photos

I found these while cleaning out an old storage cabinet. That’s number one on my list of things to accomplish this year, look at everything in the cabinet and eliminate two thirds of it to create space for Sidewalk Face Prints and mailing supplies. Does it seem like a no brainer? One cabinet, one year? It’s not. I think it’s more likely someone will crown me queen of England than I will be able to claim I have solved the riddle of too many physical artifacts from the past. But I am going to try and slay the dragon.

At least one outcome is seeing myself looking cool from a long ass time ago. That’s how the dragon gets you, you wouldn’t want to through away any spare coolness laying around. My first impulse was to appreciate my youth but as I remembered the actual events, I realize the real joy is in acceptance. Everything is coming and going and coming and going again. So, if it’s good right now, definitely take time to feel it. If it’s bad right now, it won’t last, don’t mistake it for reality. Be a good friend to yourself, tell yourself you’ve handled worse and you got this. In a few days you might even get a cool photo out of it.

Declutter, Humor

If Books Were Toxic, I’d Be Dead

January 5, 2022January 5, 2022by Sidewalk Face at Eagle-Crow-Owl4 Comments

Whenever something triggers me to imagine a truly terrible outcome, suddenly in the hospital, somehow in prison, stranded in a foreign environment, my thoughts always coalesce around a desperate fear I would not have enough books, or heaven forbid, any books. Sometimes I imagine there would be at least one book and I would read it over and over. So, in my mind, though I’m freezing on a remote mountaintop after a small plane crash, my first set of concerns is how many times I can read House of Mirth or the Talented Mr. Ripley before the magic no longer works.

I am addicted to reading. I know I am. There is no public shame because the effects don’t cause problems. Internally, I worry about my supply. It’s the worst feeling to finish the last book of a favorite author knowing I have come to end of the road with that particular escape.

I find reading to be intensely pleasurable. If a favorite book were to go on forever, somehow sustain its structural perfection but never conclude and I could opt to leave my life and read into oblivion, I don’t find that a totally awful thought. And that seems like an awful thought.

Thought reading has given me so much, I am not addicted to the benefits, useful as they may be. I am addicted to the escape. When I am reading, I am not suffering. So simple.

I love to eat and read at the same time. I don’t get to do that too often as I usually eat lunch with my husband and eat dinner with the family. I might do it at breakfast, but I’ve taken to reading off a phone screen, and that’s always subpar, which is good because it’s pretty easy to break away and get back to real life.

I recently had the opportunity to eat lunch alone, my white table bright from a beautiful sunny day, I was having sliced apple with cheese and crackers, another lifelong favorite activity. So yummy! And so easy to clean up. If and when I end up alone, half my calories will come from cheese and crackers. Pair this with a paperback novel and it just can’t get any better.

I have traveled the world through books. I’ve read authors from many countries, translations from their native language. I learned about all sorts of people and all sorts of activities. I cannot imagine who I would be without this wealth of voyeuristic knowledge. On some level, I have lived many lives, been many people, learned the lessons of others tragic choices, walked the cities and shores of foreign lands. So many small details which have never left me.

Did you know that in Mumbai police ply detainees with candy in order to make them thirsty and them deny them water as form of confessional coercion? (Maximum City – Suketu Mehta)

In the same book is a killer who has slept in a single room with his extended family his whole life is afraid to sleep alone.

Being frightening doesn’t make you less afraid.

This is what I remember.

My husband is also a voracious reader. We rarely swap books, though he usually tells me about what he’s reading. His habits are more eclectic yet cohesive then mine. He is a natural historian and reads widely on a variety of intersecting topics. Marianne Faithful’s steamy autobiography next to a collection of Tennessee Williams short stories next to Merlin Sheldrake’s treatise on fungi. I am lucky to live with someone who always has something interesting to share.

Residing in a transient neighborhood of apartments, we both regularly bring home books orphaned to the sidewalk. I see a pile in the distance and feel dread even as I hustle towards it. Our bookcases overflow with books laying horizontal on top of the ones placed properly. Books line the hallways. We frequently rehome them to friends, Goodwill or the library but still more come in the front door than leave though the back.

We have two bedside tables each. Yes, you read that correctly, our bed is flanked by four tables stacked high with books both read and unread. That was not a conscious choice and I can’t see making it on purpose, but I’ve grown fond of my second bedside book table with its foot-high sloppy stacks. I’ve told myself to clean it up because I like things to be tidy, and yet I am facing, right now, in this very moment, that it is a comfort to me, and I want to keep it. At least if I get sick and have to take to my bed, I know I am all set.