sidenotes
I’ve made the decision to create two different websites to separate my general posts about brotherhood and life from my writing advice posts. In the mean time, as files are shifted and a second site is developed, I thought I’d run some excerpts from my memoir, Picking Dandelions, which is a quirky reflection on ongoing spiritual change. This follows Adventures in Spring Cleaning, Part 1, Adventures in Spring Cleaning, Part 2 and Adventures in Spring Cleaning, Part 3.
For the next few days, I’ll be posting some pieces from my adventures in spring cleaning. If you like what you read, you can pick up an on-sale copy of the full book at Amazon for just $6.00 this week only (while supplies last).
Adventures in Spring Cleaning: The Cleaning Games We Play – Part 4My piles of cast-off junk make my room resemble a landfill. If I grieve the loss of any of this, I tell myself, I am a moron.
I find an old phone cord, and we haven’t owned a landline in years.
I find an inspirational bookmark that never inspired me. I throw it away without even a tinge of remorse, declaring that never again will I own anything uninspiring.
I toss coupons that expired in 2006.
I do not, however, throw out any chocolate. No matter how old chocolate is, I must keep it in reserve, in case my Rainblo runs out.
I plow through a pile of things I meant to scrapbook—pictures and concert stubs and airline vouchers for European destinations. I worry I kept these not to remember the trips—which I recall perfectly well—but to prove to myself how good and exciting my life is. From now on, anyone who wants to experience my thrilling past is going to have to free some time up to listen to my stories.
I hesitate at a collection of letters from previous bosses and scores from standardized tests for educators. These are portfolio pieces, evidence to marshal in case I need to prove my own worth. I determine that from now on people are just going to have to take my word for it.
I’m down to my last green Rainblo, which I chew slowly as I dump materials from mind-numbingly boring conferences, a pack of thank-you cards that are too ugly to send, and old school newsletters that never adequately documented what a privilege it is for students to learn in my classroom.
I toss old Christmas and birthday cards. I only keep a card if the person who gave it to me wrote something meaningful in it, or if the person who gave it to me is dead.
(If you’re a friend reading this, I just threw down a gauntlet: if you want me to keep your card, write something meaningful, or die—otherwise your card is headed for the dump.)
Lastly, I hold in my hands a copy of my first book that is translated into Korean.
My publisher graciously sent me three copies of the Korean version, one of which I gave to Jennie and Bethany who stayed in Korea for a time and one of which I gave to my dad because he is so devoted to my publicity that he is probably even now marketing me in Asia. Now all of us have the same problem: we each have a Korean book and we don’t speak Korean. I move it to the shelf in the basement, which serves as a book critical care unit, where literature goes to die.
I’ve made the decision to create two different websites to separate my general posts about brotherhood and life from my writing advice posts. In the mean time, as files are shifted and a second site is developed, I thought I’d run some excerpts from my memoir, Picking Dandelions, which is a quirky reflection on ongoing spiritual change. This follows Adventures in Spring Cleaning, Part 1 and Adventures in Spring Cleaning, Part 2.
For the next few days, I’ll be posting some pieces from my adventures in spring cleaning. If you like what you read, you can pick up an on-sale copy of the full book at Amazon for just $6.00 this week only (while supplies last).
Adventures in Spring Cleaning: The Cleaning Games We Play – Part 3After a while, I’m almost enjoying it. Soon I’m grabbing up items and shooting them at the garbage like I’m in a 3 point contest. Bent bobby pins—swish! Broken eye shadow—swish! Pen with a fuzzy purple haired troll on the top—swish!
I also find some very practical treasures. For example, I was absolutely convinced I needed to purchase more tupperware cups a while back, but it just so happens there are two-and-a-half sets rolling around under the bed! In another moment of triumph, I discover we have enough white and black socks to go a month without washing! And why is the unopened box of aloe-and-vitamin E-fortified Kleenex hiding under the yellow chair when I’ve been scraping my nose raw with generics all week?
I’m getting tired, but I reward myself with a pack of Rainblo gum that I found in my bedside table. I have no way to authenticate how old it is. But, after cautiously testing the purple one, I decide that it has not yet reached the danger zone.
I discover the orthopedic inserts that my chiropractor gave me. I was supposed to cut them to the shape of my feet and put them in my shoes, a task that I intended to accomplish right after I found my missing set of plastic cups.
I resolve that I will no longer own things that I do not use, and so I plant my feet firmly on the foam inserts and chop out a custom mold of my left foot which, I notice, looks like Illinois.
Soon I unearth yet another dog toy inside yet another plastic cup. I think of the children in Africa again, or even the children in some parts of the U.S.
God, don’t strike me dead.
I eat the red Rainblo to comfort myself.
I begin to toss paperwork next, starting with the user manual for my phone. My little brother, John, is a living phone manual, and he’s less convenient to dispose of.
I throw out a file of old credit card information, kept as if Uncle Sam might arrive at any moment and demand to know the APR of the Target card I cancelled in 1999.
I shred all these reminders that I lug my commercialism around like a ball and chain. I am annoyed at myself, annoyed at credit in general, and angry at what capitalism has done to our world. As each statement devolves into black-and-white confetti, I feel a little bit more free.
I eat a purple Rainblo to celebrate.
The following excerpts are about my misadventures in spring cleaning from my memoir, Picking Dandelions, which is a quirky reflection on ongoing growth. This follows Adventures in Spring Cleaning, Part 1 which ran yesterday.
If you like what you read, you can pick up an on-sale copy of the full book at Amazon for just $6.00 this week only (while supplies last).
Adventures in Spring Cleaning: The Cleaning Games We Play – Part 2Other items are hard to part with because of their place in my memory. My high school basketball team warm-ups might make sense to keep—you know, in case I join a community basketball team that just happens to be called the Summerfield Bulldogs—but why keep the reversible mesh tank tops we wore in practice? Shirts designed purely to absorb sweat are better left, along with the odor, in previous decades.
The importance of items like this to my memory is exaggerated, anyway. Even if I never saw another practice jersey as long as I lived, I would never forget all the “suicide” drills I ran all those years ago.
I throw the mesh jerseys into a donation box with some satisfaction. I am getting stronger by the minute. I resolve to be ruthless and not to keep anything stupid. This progress must continue.
Right after this resolution I uncover a squishy, plastic microphone that squeaks. This is emphatically not part of the stupid category, since my dog Wrigley’s lip synching just wouldn’t be the same without it. After that comes a half-destroyed tennis ball, a mangled rope, and a supposedly “life-like” squirrel developed to train hunting dogs, which Wrigley lugs around happily as if it his mascot.
I suddenly realize that my dog has more toys than most children in the third world , which makes me feel like I am one of those clueless people standing at the foot of the cross. I say a quick prayer for Wrig’s thirty-four toys. Father, forgive me, I have no idea what I am doing.
As I discover possessions I never meant to keep, I also find flaws that I’ve allowed to creep into my soul.
I never meant, for instance, to buy the idea that my identity is tied to my possessions. But while I was cleaning, I found it under my bed and on my shelves.
And I had thought I’d long-since pitched certain fears—like the fear that if I throw away certain cosmetic products, I won’t be quite as beautiful—but it turned out some of them were still hidden away in the couch cushions of my life as well.
Weeding through things starts to feel like a purge, a spring cleaning for my soul.
It’s that time of year again. To celebrate our attempts at spring cleaning, I thought I’d run some excerpts about the endless de-cluttering process from my memoir, Picking Dandelions, which is a quirky reflection on ongoing personal growth.
If you like what you read, you can pick up an on-sale copy of the full book at Amazon for just $6.00 this week only (while supplies last).
Adventures in Spring Cleaning: The Cleaning Games We Play – Part 1I immediately focus on my seemingly straightforward goal. If I cut down the number of things I own, I will reduce the amount of time I spend trying to maintain them.
I swear, for example, that when I add new necklaces to my box, I lay them in carefully, as if they are goldfish who have been hooked from Claire’s clearance rack and must now adjust to new water. I try not to let them touch. But without fail, when I come back, my necklaces are intertwined as if some Boy Scout snuck into my closet overnight to practice his knot tying.
Just thinking about never having to unwind these chains again gives me the vision to move ahead with my task.
I start by emptying all my possessions into piles on the bedroom floor. My original intention, of course, is to sort through the piles right away. But even getting all the items in one place proves exhausting. So instead, until I have time to get to them, I leave the piles lying near the door where I have to walk by them every time I enter or exit our bedroom.
It isn’t long before I get tired of gazing at the messy little mountain range of my belongings. They are neither scenic nor practical, and they are difficult to cross. Going from the bedroom to the kitchen, I have to step over a gauntlet of old school supplies and makeup cases and plastic combs.
Sorting becomes like an audition. I allow each item to make a little speech as I consider how worthy it is. If an item makes the cut, it gets to move into a newly arranged, well-organized box or onto a clean shelf. But if the item is obnoxious or keeps saying, “Like, um, you know?” then I give it the boot.
Unfortunately, I discover that I’m far too compassionate. No sooner do I kick some things out than I invite them back in. I look at them tenderly—How could I stay mad at you?
I can’t help that I have a heart.
After all, it’s not like the pair of sporty sandals asked to be bought. I bought them of my own free will—or at least of my mostly free will, since bright orange clearance banners bedecked with percentage signs have a special way of hypnotizing me. In any case, I am the one to blame. Why should the sandals be relegated to a secondhand store where they might be tried on by dozens of smelly feet?
Simplifying my possessions already seems less than simple. I sort through a pile of candles. An obscenely large pile. A “is she on the neighborhood emergency response team that distributes candles during blackouts?” size pile.
I consider applying for this position so I can justify keeping them.
The thing is, I love candles. I love the bright bold colors, the vanilla and almond scents, and the tiny pool of molten wax that is slowly gathered up into the light of the flaming wicks.
In my candle collection I notice a huge sub-category of orange candles. Since orange is my favorite color, any orange candle I find on sale seems like an investment that can’t go wrong. I mean, really, who can ever have enough orange candles?
Oddly, though, I love orange candles so much that I save them for the most special of special occasions. What this means, practically, is that my best orange candles live in a plastic Tupperware container tucked beneath my bed.
As you can imagine, they bring joy to millions there.
Why do I own so many things that I never intend to use?
Why do I own a set of brown candles that look exactly like tree stumps? Why anyone would buy these is beyond me, but somehow—no doubt orange clearance tags were involved—I bought a set at an outlet mall. I mean, with the economy the way it is, that might have been my last chance to acquire such treasures at pennies on the dollar.
I decide, in the end, to donate them, trusting that some tree hugger will consider them a find. I hope this is a better alternative than chucking them in the garbage, which seems wasteful.
After all, there are people in developing countries who don’t have the luxury of owning tree-bark candles. Read Part 2…