Lesson 7 :: Clearing the Air

I discovered today that I am a hoarder. A really intense and deluded hoarder. I like to think I walk lighter on this Earth than I did in my younger years when I did not think so as hard before acquiring stuff. Today disabused me of this notion.

I decided to practice the 'clearing' lesson in physical form first. For some reason, on Friday last, Tim and I 'cleaned' our room which is the hub of activity in our shared household. It is always in some form of disarray but has been particularly bad since the holidays. Think nightstand buried under layers of paper and spools of thread and books and coffee cups and just way too much stuff. So, that was rectified as of the weekend.

But we avoided the real trouble, the closet that was harboring a three foot pile on the built in dresser, the dark recess of jumbled shoes tangled with fishing poles and other oddments. That was my mission today...to sort the closet, the under bed area, the piles that had to go.

Fueled with coffee and with the boys secured off to school for a few hours, I came home and tackled it. Not one look at the computer (well, maybe 5 minutes), iPhone out of reach and ringer off, bags lined up for sorting trash, recycling and give.

It worked. The piles are gone and I discovered some long lost items in the mix...hand made ceramic tiles, a lost SeeKaiRun shoe, some mini Maurice Sendak books, a sign from Oz.


And I ran into a set of prints I bought long ago for the boys room...and never actually found the time to mat and frame. This one jumped out and so I temporarily set it up over the fireplace for all to see.


I lit a candle, something I used to do daily but seem to have forgotten about until now (maybe it was the whole fire + two small children thing).


And then I sat for a few minutes and reviewed my list of energizing activities and started to thumb through a datebook I received in the mail.



I love Kelly Rae Roberts and was so glad this came yesterday.

I am a sucker for paper, for a place to jot notes and ideas and mini-timelines. It is such a pretty place to keep thoughts. Sure, it may become yet another one of those endless notebooks I found stashed away in every recess today, full of the jots and notes and doings of the Amiee of that moment (I tossed some, really, I did).


The clean paper and clean room feel good; as the torrential rain washes away so much, so too is this course. I feel cleaner, more open, more able to see my Self and my desires and less judgmental of that Self.

But I am not lying to myself, there is still tons of work to do, including a few more closets, a fabric stash overflowing and a garage (shudder). But I am finally doing it. And that is awesome.