“If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?”
~ Albert Einstein

My arms hang limply at my sides as I survey my small apartment. In despair I gaze at what I call my ‘heaps’ which lie everywhere. From all sides they crowd me; my collections of fabric, stacks of bills to pay and bills to file, coupons I might (will never) use, half-read magazines, college catalogues filled with courses I am interested in but will never get around to, and projects I have started but lost the momentum to finish.

Most days I am oblivious to the clutter. I climb the stairs, grapple with the door handle and push the door open with my foot, my arms full of the day’s accumulations. Motorcycle gear is tossed on a chair and mail is left on the kitchen counter to peruse as I cook dinner. Keys, sunglasses, purse and lunch bag are left on the dining table for easy access tomorrow morning, only to be pushed aside this evening when I sit down at the table to work on my current sewing project. Certainly there is no room to eat at this table, but it troubles me not.

An eager sense of anticipation grips me at the thought of paring down my heaps. Once they are organized and put away, I will be well-positioned to complete … something. It’s terribly elusive, this dream I grasp at; the vague notion I need only to straighten out my physical chaos and mental calm will be my reward. With said order established, I will complete projects, my home will be uncluttered and I will be, as they say, master of my domain. For now, however, I stand inescapably surrounded.

And so I attack. From the assembled coupons, those which have expired are thrown out. I reconcile my bills weekly, when I am paid rather than in response to a specific statement, so the to-pay stack, left ignored, is added to those to be filed. Fresh unpaid invoices replace them, but only a few, just in case. Some other day, when the to-file pile can no longer be kept from falling over, I will sort them into my ever-expanding accordion file. Mental note: that too needs to be purged of useless paper.

Course catalogues for a semester already begun are crammed into an overfull bag for recycling. Old magazines are taken from the coffee table and added in chronological order to my larger, but hidden, stack of past issues I hold onto in case I ever wish to revisit an article. Every year or so I thin these out, adding to the recycling those periodicals I feel most able to access online, or those whose content appears dated and arguably unnecessary. Even then I will be convinced some may still be of use and I believe I may regret not having access to them, and so they will remain.

I refold and tidy the unassembled pieces of my boyfriend’s quilt with a renewed intent to finish this undertaking begun more than three years ago. I put away (but do not throw out or sort through) leftover fabric from a gift I actually finished – a deadline provides a wonderful impetus to wrap up a project.

Satisfied I’m done, I step back to judge the result of my efforts. The reprieve I imagined after this assault on my heaps, however, escapes me. Rather, I am acutely aware of my abiding disorganization which results in these periodic emergency clean-ups. Today’s exercise was required to assuage my discomfort but I have bandaged, not cured, and the sting of failure smarts. I am faced with the reality of my self-deception; I live in a never-ending cycle of fabricated order.

Tomorrow I will return to my comfortable ways. I will increase my quasi-organized piles – one for new coupons, another for important papers. I will dispose of anything with my address on it if the shredder is plugged in, or create a new pile until the appliance using that outlet is no longer needed. I will enjoy the inner calm that is mine when I accept the contradiction of my physical and mental environments.

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