I'm clearing the decks around here. Yep, I went on a bender in my basement today, and toted whole loads of stuff out to the curb for the trash man. I do this periodically, even though it barely makes a dent in the years and years worth of stuff that's heaped down there. There have been three generations of our family who've lived in this house, so there's everything from my father-in-law's 78 records of Franklin Roosevelt (I kid you not) to my husband's model cars and my son's outdated computers. The history of an American family, in artifact form, right in my basement. I, however, can be really merciless when it comes to tossing to the curb. I just need to be in the right mood. An ancient broken computer and monitor - gone. Some ugly tattered throw pillows and scruffy bric-a-brac - gone. Batches of cassette and VHS tapes - useless. Three ring binders filled with copies of meeting minutes from one of my musical groups going back 20 years - outta here!
So now I'm hot and sweaty, with a huge embarrasing pile of stuff lined up on my lawn. Nevertheless, I'm feeling pretty satisfied with myself. I've cleared some space, provided a little breathing room so I can set up my ironing board (very!) occasionally, or even retreat down there to read or write in a cool, quiet place should the fancy strike me.
Somehow I feel like I've cleared a corner of my mind as well. Once in a while I think we all need to do some housecleaning in our brains. Mine gets so cluttered up with my lists of "have to do's" and "should be doings" and "wish I could's." It gets so crowded up there in my mind that it's like my basement - there's no room to do anything productive because of all the junk that's cluttering up your thoughts. It's amazing how all that clearing out seems to have triggered a mental sorting out as well. I actually feel as if there's a nice corner of my brain that's now all neat and tidy, waiting for me to fill it with some really interesting ideas!
So tomorrow (assuming I can drag my aching bones out of bed), I'll be ready to tackle a whole new project, and who knows what it will be!