Confession Time: I have hoarding tendencies. If my children and friends are reading this, they won't be the least bit surprised. The rest of you may be horrified. Life has always seemed to run at warp speed, and I could never catch up or, if I got close, stay caught up. Traveling husband, active children, full-time job, social justice activism, outings with friends, my passion for music: 14 years of coordinating a folk concert series, house concerts in my living room, crossing county and even state lines for concerts and festivals. There seemed barely enough time for sleeping, much less organization and filing. If I was having company, I had a tendency to pile paperwork and To Do items in laundry baskets, which I then shoved into the utility room (out of sight, out of mind), intending to unearth and deal with afterward, but never quite getting around to it. Oops!
When we moved two years ago from our suburban home to our condo complex, with half the square footage, I realized just how many laundry baskets I owned... ;-) Downsizing forced me to sort into Keep or Trash, winnowing my stacks considerably and now, finally, my life is much more orderly than before. Liberating.
Now though, during this pandemic, I seem to have fallen back into my old habits, with food and books . I have been Instacarting (yes, I turned it into a verb!) entirely too often with Publix, Whole Foods and, more recently Costco, all delivered directly to my doorstep. My fridge, freezer, and pantry are overflowing, plus I have a few large Rubbermaid containers in my guest room closet set aside for (as if the pandemic isn't bad enough) non-perishable items for hurricane season (June 1 through November 30). I have now gone a week since my last order, and have vowed that only when we are close to running out of coconut creamer for my coffee will I reach out to Johan or Brittany or Xavier for help.
I also am trigger-happy with the Place Hold button on my Broward County Library app. If a novel, memoir, or essay collection piques my interest: click! The only problem is, I currently have 41 books checked out, with another 15 on reserve. I do not suffer from Abibliophobia (the fear of running out of reading material). I am just lured to discover as well as motivated to escape, always wanting the Next Write Thing (apologies to Glennon) at my fingertips (or on my optical horizon, as the case may be). This is all ridiculous, because I have close to 100 books that I own which I haven't yet read. But no... look, something shiny/NYT bestseller/Readers-with-Attitude recommendation! And don't even get me started on the sure-to-be-cancelled Miami Book Fair this coming November. Sob... 😢
My life now seems to be a mash-up of The Grapes of Wrath meets Farenheit 451... and I am ready for whatever happens, well-fed and well-read!
SONG: Too Much by Dave Matthews Band
BOOK: Too much, Not enough: A guide to decreasing anxiety and creating balance through intentional choices by Tara Sanderon
POEM: Who Hoards Rain Clouds in the Desert? by Rajani Radhakrishnan
Who hoards rain clouds in the desert?
There the universe stores vats of virgin happiness, doling
it out like a grim faced Scrooge, while we wait, bowl in
hand, wanting more. Always wanting more. We are made
of longing and hunger. And everywhere we look, is a giant
supermarket feeding that emptiness. Everything in excess,
marked down, on luscious display, the seed of the first apple
feverishly multiplying on every shelf of every aisle and our
hands reaching constantly to fill the ever growing void. Except
for happiness. For that, there is a line and a quota and a price.
We pretend not to see each other. Who will admit to such
privation? We study the signs from a distance. Perhaps, it
is another sorrow, another wound, another word that brings
you here. Does my skin turn transparent as I stand? Do you know
the scars inside? You will not turn your head. I will not call. How
much longer? Who hoards rain clouds in the desert? No one
warned me to save my smile. To save the light in your eyes.
QUOTE: “At the end, all that's left of you are your possessions. Perhaps that's why I've never been able to throw anything away. Perhaps that's why I hoarded the world: with the hope that when I died, the sum total of my things would suggest a life larger than the one I lived.” ~ Nicole Krauss
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