Cleaning a closet

I cleaned out the coat closet today. It was not a critical task, nothing depended upon getting it done. Sure it was annoying to have everything jumbled up on the floor of the closet, but we’d dealt with it for six months and could have dealt with it for many more. But today I had time and I felt like cleaning out a closet. Having time to ponder what I feel like accomplishing is amazing. For at least three months all of my “get stuff done” energy was spent on business or family critical tasks. Any free time was spent crashing. But today I had just enough time and energy for a coat closet.

I decided to be thorough. I got out a stool and scraped everything off of the high shelf. This shelf is above comfortable reach for every member of the family. Mostly we’ve used it as a place to toss things when we didn’t want the kids playing with them, like umbrellas. We have half a dozen umbrellas in varying states of disrepair. Apparently I have never cleaned that shelf since we moved into the house. I found a Baby Einstein CD that apparently came in a package of diapers and the instructions to an infant seat that we replaced before Patch was born. I also found an old flag Howard once made for Halloween and pieces of a plastic jump rope.

Such is the detritus of our lives. None of the stuff I found is currently useful to us. It is clutter which carries a mild nostalgia for a time long past. I’ll not keep clutter for nostalgia’s sake. With the closet now organized I can begin to tackle the front room and finally put away all the pieces of projects which linger there. But not tonight. I’m out of energy tonight. Tomorrow also looks like it may contain spare energy and time. I’ll get started then.