degunkification

Surfaces collect junk. Junk collects dust. Both are natural functions of entropy. My aversion to entropy and all its insidious functions grows in steady increments each year. People are the right hand of the demi-god Entropopo, and my people in particular make strewing things about a daily ritual.

But I’m decluttering on many levels right now. It seems to be one of the karmic features of the year and, as inpenetrable as the job looked, I’m making gratifying progress.

Houses are clutter. Mortgages are clutter. Tenants who call you on Christmas Eve because the furnace broke? Clutter. Two down, two to go in that department.

Jeff chops up miscellaneous lumber scraps in the back yard, then hauls them to the dumpster. He leaves a random, unused window in the kitchen. One step back, but two steps forward. No complaints from me. I can reassign the window myself.

By now, the basement has burped up sacks of decent used books, and numerous outgrown clothing to the Salvation Army. A second burp sends moldy, water-damaged books, and an amazing assortment of “why-was-I-keeping-that?” to the dumpster. And now it’s time to deal with the couch. We’ll chop it in half with a sawzall if necessary to fit around the basement door, but out it will go. This week. Katherine? You want that sewing machine? Best come soon. No, I’m kidding. It can stay ‘til you fetch it.

Someday--reasonably soon--I will look around this joint with the confidence that if and when the time comes to abandon ship...or house, that is...I can do it without the hours of agonizing flotsam sorting that so often characterize an empty-nester coop fly.

Oh, to be sure, more stuff will attempt to creep in. Entropopo is a demanding demi-god, and will prod his minions to collect far more than will fit in a standard dorm room. And then they will leave it on their bedroom floors. But, as long as they keep it there, I can view the future as a dumpster run here, and a dumpster run there. But a run. Not a year’s worth of shoveling out from the aftermath of an Entropopian bacchanal.

Now, it may be a while before I can realize my ideal of a trim Scandinavian cottage with a stick of furniture per room, but I do believe that--with a lot less goonk around here--I can shoulder life with more aplomb.