ARTEFACTKU: stragglers

stragglers

On Friday morning I was feeling a little bit preoccupied by the stragglers--the little things near and far that needed some attention--without a clear sense of exactly what they were and in what order to attend to them. These stragglers ranged from housekeeping tasks (spices that need structure, holes that need spackle) to Christmas decisions (cards? no cards? if cards, pictures? no pictures?) to work-related must-do's to I'm not sure what.

I desired a quiet place--somewhere to write down the "stragglers" and see exactly whether the urgency that had taken up residence in my brain was justified or undue. But I also wanted to make sure that the desire to escape wasn't a symptom of the Avoidance Disorder that I had recently managed to manage.

After a little bit of contemplation (but not too much) I went with what "felt right" and ended up at an empty table with a full cup of coffee looking out upon books upon books upon books.

Ahhh. The bookstore.

When I uncapped my pen and started to write, I didn't go straight for the stragglers. I took a different approach. I went for the completers. Those things I had done that week--big and small, personal and professional. It only took me four minutes to get it down, but...

Turns out, I did quite a lot.

And I bet, if we took a few more minutes at the end of a day or, maybe more realistically, at the end of a week, to jot down what we accomplished, we'd surprise ourselves each and every time.

I don't think we need to pat ourselves on the back for being productive, maybe just get off our back a time or two when we think we aren't.

After all, the best productions were once just stragglers in someone's quiet mind.

::

My discovery on Friday left me pretty peaceful with many of the stragglers...but the magazine thing is definitely out of control.

After the bookstore, I stopped at Target to pick up a $3 egg timer to set for 20 minutes every day while I sorted through those glossy paper traps. I have decided, with the help of an article by Peter something (a professional "organizer" though not to be confused with Peter my husband who is not a professional organizer but maybe a pathological one) that when we hold onto stuff we aren't making room (in our minds or our homes) for the future. Since I'm planning on a whole lot of future, I've got some things to get rid of.

Starting with magazines and catalogs.

Anyway, I had the egg timer in my hand when I realized what a wasteful purchase it would be. Afterall, I have a timer on my phone, a timer on my stove, I have playlists with Christmas music that are 20 minutes long! I don't need to "buy more"--that kind of defeats the purpose. I need to figure out how to use what I've got!

So, the iPod is queued up. Tomorrow from 1:15-1:35, I'll be sorting and singing.

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The last splash of the night: we went in search of our Christmas tree today. Despite the cold (though still no snow) we scrutinized every tree, every pine cone, and especially Santa Claus before making any decisions.

I've posted a couple of pictures from last year (Ava's first Christmas tree outing) also. "Year-to-year" now fills up quickly with so much change and a mountain of meaning , that's for sure.