Wednesday, April 02, 2014

Day 3 - C for a Cluster

This got me thinking. Really hard! I thank and then thunk some more. It wasn't just one C that came to mind - from California to Closet, from Clutter to Cleanliness, form Create to Crush (as in near antonym of Create and the kind I had (and continue to have) for Sachin (Tendulkar) :-) Before you Cringe form my abuse of Capitals, I'll call in the content of this day's blog.

For those who had not followed me in the last year's challenge, and the year before that, I did a series of  verses starting with the alphabet of the day and then I made it a little hardcore and used the given letter over and over, in the beginning of a sentence and everywhere possible to key in my verse - on that lines, or by sheer habit (could habits be formed over a couple of years of doing the same thing for 4 weeks at a stretch, casue they add up to the said eight weeks ;-) ?) This year, I am really going to do an abstract one but for today, I shall punch in a little bit of this and that.

My friend S, the really fun one that has come very close to matching my wit and timing has this canny (not uncanny, mind you) ability of telling life's simple truths in unplanned, un complicated dialogue. "I feel like cleaning others' mess" her pearl of wisdom unfolded from our oyster of conversation - "But I let me house be. I somehow cannot stand other's clutter as much as I can stand mine" - Bingo! Does that ring bells? A few of them? For me, it does - not just for me alone but for many people that surround me. I think human beings have this uncanny (yes, uncanny this time) ability of somehow shutting themselves to their own faults - more often than not! " I cannot stand my own clutter" said no one - ever! Atleast, not aloud and not in my ear shot - ever! If you bar me that is - I did say it to myself in the recent past - and no, not aloud - not until now. And what resulted was a revamp of sorts that was like a little tempest in a tea pot - the tea pot in question, being our walk in closet.

For over a decade now - ever since we'd called this humble abode our home, we tried to metamorphoses and alchemize out clutter into something presentable. Make shift shelving was welcomed into the space as a result and was sprinkled with a generous dose of 'lack of handyman' skills by the darling hubby! (And how I am loving that he never reads stuff out of here unless I held him on gun point - even then, he only listens, or pretends perhaps, to be listening while I read it out) So, the pseudo Mr.Vila and Ms.Stewart did all they could to add space, cubes, shelves, shoe racks, hat boxes, rattan baskets and random lucite bins to declutter and organize. Years passed and piles added to the pointless possessions and the door was promptly closed for any curious onlookers - sometimes it was bad, sometimes it was worse almost making moi mimic the event of searching for a needle in a haystack if I had to look for a certain scarf or a clutch. I went into bouts of 'getting it under control' letting out frustrating cusses, purging, pruning and everything in between. I went to the verge of renouncing hand bags, silk, leather and even nail polish just in silly hopes of having the clutter in check - and we finally, one bright spring morning, decided to take professional help and in that process, each and every pin to party dress came out of the place. we did a demolition of what ever silly stuff we hung in there and had a prim and proper custom shelving built.

The end result was reveling - to see the clutter melt into order and the taupe walls beyond the crisp white cabinets promised years of organizing and arranging. For now atleast, it looks like it! But the whole point here is not the closet, or the clutter or even the cleanness that came out - it is just that we have our baggage, hidden or in display, disclosed or concealed and it is a nice thing if we start noticing what we shove under our own carpets before rallying around with a magnifying glass into our neighbors' living rooms.

:-)

Tomorrow would be the D day! Do come back.







2 comments:

  1. Visiting on day 3 of the #atozchallenge with all my fellow writers. I appreciate all the hard work it takes to participate. I hope you make many new blogging friends. If you have time or interest I am writing about gardening this year. Come visit.

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