Been steadily trashing my room since I returned to Vancouver, hauling things off shelves, spreading clothes, books, and miscellany on every surface, sleeping curled up in the middle of everything, then getting up and doing it all again. It’s refreshing, if messy, sorting everything into cascading piles of to-do list, forward progress evinced by time lapse, the layers thinning, hopefully to eventually disappear. Chaos with a purpose, with an eye towards a goal.
The problem is that our things-to-get-rid-of are taking up space planned for things-to-keep, like the overly large chandelier currently lording over our front closet, hogging all the room the linens should be living in instead of in the bottom of my bedroom closet in the space meant for my french horn. Like that. But everywhere. And the more I uncover, the more I discover needs to be addressed. The box of mending that had been hiding in the suitcase that I listed on Craigslist. The bag of massive red paper lanterns under my bed where I planned on putting the lightbox.
I tell myself this is the prelude, that once everything gathers enough momentum, there will be cohesion, and order will follow with the flashy grace of a well practiced ceremony, the sort tourists gawp over in countries far from their own. My apartment will be so well organized I could sell tickets and the stubs would be postcards, so you too could show your family and friends, until the entire world holds its breath for a moment in awe.
