I can’t abide clutter and yet I do it to myself every morning. After I’ve brushed my hair and teeth, after plopping down on the carpet beside the bed for some speed yoga, after boiling water for cocoa, I boot up the laptop and sit in front of double south-facing windows.
I straighten my desk. To Do list on the right, mug and mouse on the left. Turn on the phone or maybe not yet. I push my work folders and notebooks into a drawer and square up my personal notebooks, the ones that are allowed to live on my desktop. Let the game begin.
Within minutes, I’ve opened six tabs and eight windows. Email, Quickbooks, Word, Explorer, Photoscape, spreadsheets, calendar, news, and weather – all clamoring for attention. I study the grackles and the morning post-rain shine of the willow oak leaves.
A window smudge reminds me that I’ve been putting off cleaning the windows for two months. My stomach winces. So much to do, so much left undone, I can’t decide which horse to let out of the gate first and now there are six of them galloping across my mind.
When this happens, I usually get up and start a load of laundry. Fill the bird feeders. Grab the weed trimmer. Scrub a toilet.
It’ll be a miracle if I get my mother’s memoir registered and printed to proof by May 12th. Meanwhile I’ve been avoiding a pile of letters from State Workers Insurance Fund, my living will, and other equally important, but not urgent projects. I’ve already decided I won’t get the windows washed until June.
Then there’s that second April post I’ve been stabbing at. Well, there’s one thing I can do, I think, I can write about windows and pass it off as a blog post. One thing done!
