What is it about the first of the year that makes me want to tidy up something? I think it has to do with wanting a fresh start. I even love the term “tidying up.” It sounds clean, sensible, British.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m tidying up.”
“Jolly good, then. Carry on.”
Spark Joy
During the pandemic shut-down, I became serious about tidying up. I watched the Marie Kondo series on Netflix and bought her book. I was hooked. For a while (because there was nothing else to do) I was taking her method seriously. I folded my undies and T-shirts into origami shapes and placed them neatly into drawers and went through my house asking myself if an item “sparked joy” or not.
Avalanche
Life goes on and my fascination with tidying up waned until the other day when a search for a stapler caused an avalanche of fabric in my office/studio closet. As a sewist, writer, and a creator of things, I end up with bits and pieces of fabric, sewing notions, buttons, patterns, rough draft manuscripts, notebooks, assorted pens and markers, books, journals… this and thats. Though fortunate to have a dedicated room for my creative life, the space is compact. Lately my tidying up style has deteriorated to stashing stuff in the closet, so I can run the vacuum across the floor now and then. Hence the avalanche. It was time to make a change.
