By Nancy Lowell George
What we see depends mainly on what we look for.
~John Lubbock
I picked a bad time to become a minimalist. My daughter had just moved home from college with armloads of clothing and boxes of electronic gadgets. She planned to live at home for a few months before her wedding.
What we see depends mainly on what we look for.
~John Lubbock
I picked a bad time to become a minimalist. My daughter had just moved home from college with armloads of clothing and boxes of electronic gadgets. She planned to live at home for a few months before her wedding.
On move-back day, she struggled to carry the box we had purchased four years earlier for under-bed storage.
"Don't you want to leave that in the garage?" I asked.
"No, these are my shoes," she answered.
My recent vow to clear my house of unnecessary stuff was quickly buried in piles of college T-shirts, mismatched kitchenware and boxes labeled "Italian flashcards."
I was living in a feng shui nightmare!
I decided to declutter after spending a summer week living in a Vermont college dormitory room while I attended a conference. A college dormitory without students is a blank canvas -- no posters, no carpet, empty shelves and gaping closets. In my small white room with no television, no computer, no telephone and no distractions, I slept better than I had in months.
Inspired, I returned home and cleared bookcases, boxed photographs and cleaned closets. And then Emily returned home to plan her wedding.
The capable, organized daughter who had navigated college with skill now left a trail of destruction in her wake -- soggy tea bags, empty snack packages, straws, lists, junk mail.
Had I forgotten? Was she always like this, or had I become one of those cranky women who would rather dust than rock her babies? In high school Emily had left a trail of burning lights. I could follow her path around the house by snapping off lamp switches. But I didn't remember being bothered by her trails of clutter.
Before Emily moved home, I had imagined that the three months before the wedding would be girl time when we could watch movies, shop and talk. I didn't anticipate turning into Clutter Cop -- constantly chiding her about her housekeeping and depositing her bits of trash in the doorway of her room, where they stayed... unnoticed.
I had once considered myself to be quite flexible and easygoing about messes. When my three kids were younger a neighbor asked, "Just how many kids do you have?" There were so many children in the yard, he could not figure out which belonged to me.
I never minded when my kids finger-painted, shook thousands of sprinkles on homemade cookies, or dyed Easter eggs. A few splatters of paint on the wall or colored sugar in the kitchen corners was a small price to pay for creativity and family traditions. But that was before my children left for college and I became enamored with simplicity and order.
When Emily moved home, I realized that the problem with being a minimalist was that it didn't leave room for the clutter of family life. Where does a minimalist put a four-foot-tall stack of bridal magazines with color-coded tabs? Rolls of ribbon to tie on tiny vials of bubbles? Or a note that says, "Mom, sorry about the mess, I'll pick it up when I get home. I love you."
A minimalist can get quite grumpy when her children move home. That's why I decided to postpone becoming a minimalist. Because if I didn't, I was afraid I would find myself in that small, white room again, but this time there would be padding on the walls.
"Don't you want to leave that in the garage?" I asked.
"No, these are my shoes," she answered.
My recent vow to clear my house of unnecessary stuff was quickly buried in piles of college T-shirts, mismatched kitchenware and boxes labeled "Italian flashcards."
I was living in a feng shui nightmare!
I decided to declutter after spending a summer week living in a Vermont college dormitory room while I attended a conference. A college dormitory without students is a blank canvas -- no posters, no carpet, empty shelves and gaping closets. In my small white room with no television, no computer, no telephone and no distractions, I slept better than I had in months.
Inspired, I returned home and cleared bookcases, boxed photographs and cleaned closets. And then Emily returned home to plan her wedding.
The capable, organized daughter who had navigated college with skill now left a trail of destruction in her wake -- soggy tea bags, empty snack packages, straws, lists, junk mail.
Had I forgotten? Was she always like this, or had I become one of those cranky women who would rather dust than rock her babies? In high school Emily had left a trail of burning lights. I could follow her path around the house by snapping off lamp switches. But I didn't remember being bothered by her trails of clutter.
Before Emily moved home, I had imagined that the three months before the wedding would be girl time when we could watch movies, shop and talk. I didn't anticipate turning into Clutter Cop -- constantly chiding her about her housekeeping and depositing her bits of trash in the doorway of her room, where they stayed... unnoticed.
I had once considered myself to be quite flexible and easygoing about messes. When my three kids were younger a neighbor asked, "Just how many kids do you have?" There were so many children in the yard, he could not figure out which belonged to me.
I never minded when my kids finger-painted, shook thousands of sprinkles on homemade cookies, or dyed Easter eggs. A few splatters of paint on the wall or colored sugar in the kitchen corners was a small price to pay for creativity and family traditions. But that was before my children left for college and I became enamored with simplicity and order.
When Emily moved home, I realized that the problem with being a minimalist was that it didn't leave room for the clutter of family life. Where does a minimalist put a four-foot-tall stack of bridal magazines with color-coded tabs? Rolls of ribbon to tie on tiny vials of bubbles? Or a note that says, "Mom, sorry about the mess, I'll pick it up when I get home. I love you."
A minimalist can get quite grumpy when her children move home. That's why I decided to postpone becoming a minimalist. Because if I didn't, I was afraid I would find myself in that small, white room again, but this time there would be padding on the walls.
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