Newmann: The clean out
“And don’t speak too soon, for the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times, they are a-changin'”
鈥� Bob Dylan, from the album “The Times They Are A-Changin'”
Dylan released the song 60 years ago, in 1964. Lots of chaos going on then. But what’s new? The times seem to always be a-changin’. And the chaos just keeps on keeping on.
Sometimes, to get a bit of a break from all the external changes, one has to make some personal revisions. Not necessarily on the big-ticket items like emotional balance or self-actualization. Just little stuff.
Like tidying up the overwhelming clutter in the home office.
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The office has been a sanctuary from the order of the rest of the house. Lots of eclectic pictures adorn the walls with no space left for new additions. Paperwork piles up on the desk (sometimes in no conceivable order). Any number of cords, plugs and electronic gizmos are haphazardly stored away. Bookshelves end up carrying more paraphernalia than books. There are printers, paper shredders and furniture of all descriptions. In the absence of some immediate action, a partridge in a pear tree could soon show up, and would probably go unnoticed.
The room seems to gradually shrink to the size of a telephone booth as more and more is added to its ranks.
So 鈥� time for a change.
Trying to cull stuff can be difficult. Especially when you come across items you didn’t even know you had. Open a drawer, dig through its contents and 鈥� wow, where did that come from? Or finding the long-lost thing that you just could never find (since it had been buried under a bunch of other long-lost things) and had replaced with another item that you can now barely find. Duplication at its finest. During the cleanup, many of those duplicates ended up on the departure list.
Then there’s the “probably-better-not-get-rid-of-this-since-it-may-come-in-handy-later” syndrome. Seems perfectly logical 鈥� until it’s not. Especially when you finally come to the realization 鈥� after a minute or two of agonizing 鈥� that many of the items in question will, in all probability, never come in handy later. Needless to say, they’ve now left the room.
The paperwork is always the hardest to deal with. Trying to sift through the backlog is 鈥� well, it’s mind-numbing. The start of the process seems like an obligation to go through every page with an eagle eye. After about 10 or so pages it just becomes a matter of a casual glance 鈥� and then either a keeper or into the shredder. Just have to hope that anything overlooked is not too important.
The pile gradually whittles down and then goes into more manageable folders, to be stored away and, maybe, to be looked at again at some future date. Or maybe not.
There’s always the feeling of relief when all the culling comes to an end. And you can look at a somewhat organized room.
But, as the song goes, “don’t speak too soon, for the wheel’s still in spin.” Because, inevitably, chaos will make its way back into the room.
As in the little office; as in the world outside the office door.
Tom Newmann splits his time between Edwards and Queenstown, New Zealand. He has been going winter-to-winter since 1986. He was also a journalist in Missoula, Montana, at the Missoulian for quite a few years. Email him at tsnnz12@gmail.com.
