On being messy
I haven't been blogging much because, well, because I've been lazy. Lazy lazy lazy. Sloth-like. A giant slug. The queen of vegging. Procrastinator extraordinaire.
And it has felt great.
The house is a disaster. If I don't finish laundry soon we'll be forced to string together dish towels to make clothes. (Oh, wait, the dish towels are dirty, too.) The Christmas tree is still up, and the stockings are still hung. Some of the Christmas presents are put away/in use, but there are still stacks in the library. In fact, there stacks everywhere I look. Magazines that piled up from last October through present. Bills that are paid but not filed. From the last two months, no less! Zoe's new art supplies are scattered over the darkroom floor. New books on the "Oooo, I can't wait to read" list. Every shoe we own now resides by the back door. And did I mention that laundry?
I needed this, though. This time to just be messy. Things that MUST get done ARE getting done, but little else. It's felt freeing, in a way. Definitely relaxing.
By nature, I am not a messy person. I much prefer order and organization to chaos. Which, at least in my mind, goes against the very grain of creativity. Isn't creativity supposed to be messy and glorious and feel a little bit like free-falling through life? So why, in my Type A mind, can I not create unless everything else is done, tidied up, put away, filed for eternity? I think it has to do with several things: being Type A is at the top of the list. Being the pleaser first-born is there. Being a working mom, for whom organization is the very essence of mere survival, contributes. This self-defined notion that a "good life, the proper life, the key to success" is to be, or at least appear to be, in complete control at all times.
I would like to be more at ease with messiness. This trial run has been good, but I'm realizing there's a reason I like order. It's easier. I just need to ensure that order and organization don't, as they have in the past, stand in the way of creativity. I have to un-train (de-condition?) myself that the darkroom must be immaculate before I can work on images. Because the darkroom is never, ever clean. Three of us use it, creatively, far too often for it to stay clean. Plus it's the business center of the house. Paperwork central. (This is why our new house, hand to God, will have a bill/paperwork station/desk in the kitchen - it's too hard to be creative when a stack of retirement investment statements looms just within reach of the mouse.)
M leaves for Paris tomorrow. I'll most likely do what I always do when he's gone: bury myself in projects to avoid thinking about how much I miss him. I'll tackle the house after he's gone, when the temptation to hang out with him on the couch is also gone.
But I might just leave a little strategic messiness to get out of my tightly-knit personal, self-developed boundaries.
And it has felt great.
The house is a disaster. If I don't finish laundry soon we'll be forced to string together dish towels to make clothes. (Oh, wait, the dish towels are dirty, too.) The Christmas tree is still up, and the stockings are still hung. Some of the Christmas presents are put away/in use, but there are still stacks in the library. In fact, there stacks everywhere I look. Magazines that piled up from last October through present. Bills that are paid but not filed. From the last two months, no less! Zoe's new art supplies are scattered over the darkroom floor. New books on the "Oooo, I can't wait to read" list. Every shoe we own now resides by the back door. And did I mention that laundry?
I needed this, though. This time to just be messy. Things that MUST get done ARE getting done, but little else. It's felt freeing, in a way. Definitely relaxing.
By nature, I am not a messy person. I much prefer order and organization to chaos. Which, at least in my mind, goes against the very grain of creativity. Isn't creativity supposed to be messy and glorious and feel a little bit like free-falling through life? So why, in my Type A mind, can I not create unless everything else is done, tidied up, put away, filed for eternity? I think it has to do with several things: being Type A is at the top of the list. Being the pleaser first-born is there. Being a working mom, for whom organization is the very essence of mere survival, contributes. This self-defined notion that a "good life, the proper life, the key to success" is to be, or at least appear to be, in complete control at all times.
I would like to be more at ease with messiness. This trial run has been good, but I'm realizing there's a reason I like order. It's easier. I just need to ensure that order and organization don't, as they have in the past, stand in the way of creativity. I have to un-train (de-condition?) myself that the darkroom must be immaculate before I can work on images. Because the darkroom is never, ever clean. Three of us use it, creatively, far too often for it to stay clean. Plus it's the business center of the house. Paperwork central. (This is why our new house, hand to God, will have a bill/paperwork station/desk in the kitchen - it's too hard to be creative when a stack of retirement investment statements looms just within reach of the mouse.)
M leaves for Paris tomorrow. I'll most likely do what I always do when he's gone: bury myself in projects to avoid thinking about how much I miss him. I'll tackle the house after he's gone, when the temptation to hang out with him on the couch is also gone.
But I might just leave a little strategic messiness to get out of my tightly-knit personal, self-developed boundaries.
posted by Amy at 11:30 AM
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