Tuesday 6 April 2010

Closed for reorder

Everytime I walk into a room I pick something up from the floor. It is a fantastic strategy. As a result, I am seeing the floor. This is so empowering. I am becoming transfixed by floor.

And it's only encouraged me. In pursuit of control over STUFF I am stashing crap in boxes, on shelves and - wait for it - stuffing STUFF in plastic bags to be taken away.

Sssh!

With that last one I must conduct myself in the guise of a smuggler with a facemask under cover of darkness, passing contraband to silent callers at the door. They must knock, slow, quiet, twice, cover their faces with bat winged cloaks, take secret parcels, and disappear.

This is the only way to remove some of the items from this house. I package them discreetly and slip them away. If I am discovered, the panic will start, the wail go up, But Mama! We need the foam picture alphabet set! The one that Shark chewed when she was three! The one that misses out the letters D, X and G!

You do not need these things, children. I must clear the way, clear out the toddler toys, prepare our ground, my battle lines, lay out the place for your teenage future.

And what a pleasure it is. I can fondly turn that chewed up letter D which I find wedged between floorboard and wall, like a mummified offering for the security and goodwill of our house. I could leave it there, for the occupants to find in ninety years ahead. I won't. Better to get rid of it. You will need the space to stuff your acid stash when the police come beating down the door.

But this feels good, all this emerging space and floor. This is perfect, this life cleansing, clearing up, sweeping away of STUFF.

Come back later, and look at my shelves.

8 comments:

Glowstars said...

Do you want to come and do my house when you're done?

Big mamma frog said...

Perhaps we should form an orderly queue...

sharon said...

I think this is maybe more about clearing the decks for the big move than Spring cleaning. By the time you return hopefully the gritlets will have forgotten their chewed sponge letters and tattered artworks. Better buy the black paint ready for the even bigger return and the years of teenage angst. Can you arrange to have the doors reinforced whilst you are away in foreign climes ready for the renewed slamming?

Alice said...

Glad its not just us with too much STUFF!

darth sardonic said...

"You will need the space to stuff your acid stash when the police come beating down the door."

you have a knack for hyperbole, and i dig it.

Jax Blunt said...

pick up something each time you enter a room. I can do that.

Grit said...

no, glowstars. i do not. one house is enough. but thank you for the offer.

no big mamma frog, nononononono.

...on the other hand, i would not be emotionally attached to any item in another child-filled house, therefore would be able to dispose of it quickly and easily. hmmm. maybe i should offer a house clearing sevice. i have become so enthusiastic though that you might have to check the bathwater.

sharon, the fact that the kids would be walking back into this house older and wiser is a great motivator. i am looking ahead. for one of the first times, actually, in the last 10 years; i am not back. this feels good.

alice, this home ed exchange system sounds good. keep it going, because it takes me a while to get round to things. i am the late grit. but i will get there in the end.

darth, it is either because the truth is so depressingly tedious that people may feel meanly underwhelmed, or so bizarrely unlikely that they will feel i am having them on, that it is the best means to disguise both. i am delighted that you dig it.

round here jax that has been a hideous contagious disease. not anymore, thanks to mr superstrong bleach.

crazywildberry said...

I have been doing the same thing lately. Cleaning house and demanding order! Feels so good.