Immersion Therapy

My move is a few months away, and that means the familiar lurch of pre-move drudgery jobs.  Like cleaning up.  Organizing.  Recycling.  Donating.  Streamlining before the crush of a pack-out. 

***

One place severely in need of some editing was (is) the studio, with all the books, magazines, clippings and general flotsam & jetsam that I've felt necessary in enabling a creative life.  My mega-organized friend actually shuddered when she saw my bookshelves.  I'm not proud of that, but am putting it out there like a 12-step admission that I had things stuck in sideways and coming off the ends, etc., etc. 

Organized Friend:  You need to clip out the ideas you like and keep them in binders.  

Tanya:  I've already done that.  I have seven binders....see them here?  They're full.     

Both of us:  blink, blink.....Impasse.


However, I realized that my friend was right -- and that editing was the only answer. So, I did the unthinkable and went through the binders to see what could be weeded out (!!!) from inside.

Now, here's the thing about these binders: 

Yes, they are pressing against the side of that bin to the point of breaking it -- and yes, they are full. 

But, these binders are like a database -- a wonderfully tactile & non-technical database that holds every single good idea I have ever done or seen.  The bottom line is that in all my years of moving chaos, I know that without fail, the instructions/ingredient lists/party ideas/details for ANYTHING I have ever successfully produced are inside.  Safely and neatly INSIDE those white binders. 

Messing with that was a big deal.  I'm not kidding -- I actually had some anxiety symptoms over this.  So, I coached myself into starting with what I felt would be the least threatening one. 

Projects.  Right off the bat, a post-it-note salad to be re-arranged.  No problem.  

After the initial "Easy A" of straightening up the first page, things got tougher....and there were six more binders waiting for me.  Deciding what to keep/what to throw was much more draining than I realized.  My whole creative confidence is wrapped up in this....

How do I choose between these after all? 

I need the article on cardamom....

....as well as the homemade spy gadgets for children.  I'm not going to shoot myself in the foot tossing good ideas for kids -- my house is filled with children.  I need that clipping. 

But, there were several I couldn't even remember why I'd had them in the first place:

I think this was about paint and wall treatments..??..but, am not sure.  Straight into Paper Recyling. 

This stack tempted me, but I had to stay firm, firm, FIRM with myself. 

It's all in Norwegian.  All good ideas....but, in Norwegian.  Since I'm anticipating DANISH playing first string in my future, it all had to go.   Norwegian would just confuse me.  I might go and get that photo off the top, though -- doesn't that look wonderful with the centerpiece pots of thyme wrapped in white paper and twine???

Now I have the binders neatly settled on the top shelf of a [formerly-bursting] IKEA shelf:

Lots of paper recyling went on over here..... :-)

***And by the way.....the helpful woman who wrote those words up above about a project a day making you feel calm?   So very much NOT my kind of woman.  It absolutely hurts and feels completely horrible and wrong and painful to devote one week in this kind of work. 

one of my 'amnesty' keeps.....the sketch is too good to throw out

Although.....certainly AFTER all the painful decisions were made, then I suppose I felt better.  But, only because it was over.

Hmmmmm.