Yikes! It’s been a while since I last posted. I was very gung-ho after returning from my parents this summer, but seem to have fallen off the wagon, so to speak.
I recently read somewhere that one’s environment is reflective of what’s going on inside our heads, and I’ve been thinking about this and how it applies to me.
We moved recently (yes, again, and hopefully not again until we move into our dome home), and so it was a time to evaluate some of the things we had and how some of the new habits we’d developed while living in a one bedroom were helping or harming us now that we’re in a two bedroom.
Living in a one bedroom apartment meant learning some new habits and keeping the clutter at bay. As I look around our new place, I can see how that year-long experience has really changed the way I look at space and how I use it. But there were and still are pockets of clutter.
Nate asked me last night what was keeping me from sorting through the last few boxes. One reason was because there simply wasn’t any place to put them. It had been my hope that we’d be able to move to a three bedroom, so that I could have a “room of my own” but that wasn’t to be. Nate then suggested that we just toss the stuff, but that’s not feasible either, most of it is valuable to me (like my easel, journals and art from my childhood).
And then there is the clutter and little messes that seem to be pervasive with my inability to throw things out right away. A wake of clutter as my distraction passes through…
I’m probing my mind, trying to think of what mental clutter I have, what it is that is being reflected back to me in my environment. I have a creative mind, constantly solving problems, generating new ideas, and tossing around new concepts that come my way via the creativity of others that I see when I visit blogs and read books. But while I generate ideas and toss others’ ideas around my mind, I’m not actually doing anything. I’m like a moth to a flame; entranced with the ideas themselves rather than the making of any creative reality.
I fear this is the source of my mental clutter. The piles of unrealized projects, unrefined creativity rattling around like dirt covered gems.
So, how do I go about realizing these projects and uncovering these gems? I probably wouldn’t even have this problem if I had a regular job; it’s only because I have the free time I do that I’m able to even pursue where my curiosities lead. But I also have responsibilities, to Nate, to Seth…to others in my community.
If the environment reflects the mind, does one only need to tidy up the mind and the environment will follow or could I clean up the environment and have my mind follow suit? If I find a place for my easel, it is very likely that I would actually bring some of my creative impulses into reality…
My husband and I are so bad about clutter! We are both sentimental and collectors, and on top of this, I want to keep anything that could possibly be used a second time. There are a lot of things we have a hard time throwing away!
Moving across the country has probably been the best thing possible for us in this regard, as we didn’t want to pay to carry around everything with us. And now, in our one bedroom, I just try to find a home for everything. My latest addition was a craigslist “craft” dresser, where I keep all my various projects I’m going to get to one day.