It’s Spring Cleaning time, which must be like Black Friday for the famed home organizer Marie Kondo. Her books fly off the shelves at this time of year as hoards of us peek out of the dusty doorways of our winter shelters, squint at the newly blue skies, and resolve to simplify our closets, basements and garages.
Her “Konmari” organization method, where one throws out any object that does not “spark joy” within them, is the most hardcore decision-making strategy imaginable, yet her hit television shows and social media numbers serve as proof that many are brave enough to give it a try.
I see the appeal: the desired result would be a home with clean sight lines and an open appearance – with all rugs visible to the very edges (sans shoes, socks, and corrected homework papers folded in half) – where all books are VERTICAL on every shelf – and every well-positioned noun reflects a blissful tale of warm sentiment. Room upon room exquisitely representing the proverb that there really is a place for everything.
So, Spring Cleaning. Throw open the windows before all the pollen starts blowing and get some fresh air in: wash the curtains and wax the table and fluff the cushions.
Those are all the the fun verbs, but the one that lurks behind them, the one that’s much less fun to say yet always implied this time of year, is purge - a word so dreadful that it’s now the title of a series of scary horror movies and somewhat-less-scary television shows.
Purge: the dark, grim circumstance of NOT SPARKING JOY.
I have never met Marie Kondo, but I do know an artist whose wife is her friend. When I asked him if their house was always tidy – just in case she came over – he said “no… I mean, we try, but there’s only so much you can do.”
I do not imagine Ms. Kondo would like me very much. I feel that I would be the Maria from Sound of Music to her Mother Superior of Feng Shui as I am of those flibbertigibbet to whom nearly EVERYTHING can “spark joy”.
But I’ll try. I will, earnestly, try.
My approach to Spring Cleaning this year is a bit less draconian than the Konmari method, but wider in scope.
I am not merely choosing a weekend to clean, but approaching the entire season as an opportunity to sift, trim, refine, and distill. Not only objects, but habits, beliefs, philosophies, styles, memories, worries, and unread e-mails. Twelve weeks to clear a wilderness and uncover fields to plant with new ideas, new plans, new goals. Week One:
I began with the desktop of my computer. Shift. Click. Sort.
Moved on to the floor of my little office. Toss. Dust. Stack.
Found a load of procrastination, right over there.
Made some calls. Wrote some letters. Sent in some forms.Had an entire unopened box of irrational optimism in the pantry that was way past its date. It’s a shame to waste it, but you know how it is when you get things in bulk.
And the malaise! Where’d all THAT come from. Yikes!
(If you know don’t know this, it grows like wild ivy.)
I discovered that I, at what I’m going to very generously call the beginning of my third act, have amassed a great deal of potential joy .
For instance, I collected a selection of books that I was convinced my daughter would absolutely love: the thought of her feverishly poring through these with a flashlight under the covers brought me joy. However, these books did NOT spark joy in her because they are largely about children in the 1930’s solving petty crimes in upper class suburbs with no telephones or comfortable clothing. These can probably go now.
There is another new category of very useful items that I am not very likely to use. This is a more surgical delineation, as all the circuits and diodes in my Radio Shack carrying cases aren’t easily replaceable, and the full spectrum chemistry sets (obtained by subscription during the COVID lockdown) may be relevant through the end of my daughter’s junior year of high school science.
However, I do have TWO Lite-Brites. TWO. My wife, a bastion of both patience and aesthetic, has drawn the line not at the cases of electronic components extensive enough to build my own C-3PO or the cardboard boxes of sulfur, ammonium nitrate and heavens knows what else stacked about the house - but here, at the Lite-Brites.
She admits that they are fascinating. We have enjoyed playing with them in the dark, creating fascinating artwork, together as a family. She GETS the Lite-Brite, as a concept and a light entertainment. But I purchased a vintage one on eBay before I realized that my mother had kept my old one saved in its original box… thus, TWO – with BOTH boxes displaying different painted illustrations of fascinated children, their eerily frozen smiles and raised eyebrows expressing the glee of incandescent illumination.
“You can only keep one. Both are disturbing. Please choose the one that’s least disturbing.”
She was right - one the boxes had an image a bit more off-putting than the other. It was unsettling to look at, like a black velvet painting of dogs playing poker. It did not fit in with the rest of our home, somehow.
It most certainly did not spark joy.
So now we have ONE vintage Lite-Brite on display, and one that I am listing again on eBay, hoping that it will spark joy in some other family, and not be eventually passed along like a cursed monkey’s paw in a year or so once the illustration begins to disturb them too.
What is most interesting is that it wasn’t the object itself, but the LACK of it, that sparked joy in my wife…
…I find that a fortunate encouragement to continue, and perhaps, a cautionary tale.
