Love the Stuff You're With

You've heard what the professional organizers and declutterers say,

"Surround yourself only with what you love."

Well, I don't always like my husband, but I keep him.

Love is subjective. One man's meat is another man's trash, or fish, or something like that.

There's no accounting for tastes.

A cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind?

What did Einstein say? If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, what is an empty desk the sign of?

What do I love? What are the things I love, that no one else might love?

The dry, dusty Catnip on trays on the porch. The long--obscenely long--gourds also on the porch. The tangled--what looks like weeds--in the yard, but it's deadly nightshade entwined with Grandpa Ott Morning Glories and purple asters, hundreds of bees buzzing around them in a frenzy. The dying cosmos in the vase on my desk...

Why do I love these things? Each has a story. I cut the Catnip in the spring and put it on trays. Admittedly, it's been awhile since I put the branches there, but I will eventually crumble the leaves and put them in a jar for the cats. I crumble a little on the floor each morning.

The obscenely long gourds? I planted and weeded them, and cut them, and dried them. I do have plans for them. The mail carrier says they look like snakes, and wouldn't they be amazing painted black and hung on the fence around my yard, with red eyes and tongues. Macabre art.

The Morning Glories, Deadly Nightshade, and Asters? The cluster of different shades of red and purple is beautiful in the morning. I just like to look at it. And I love bees.

And the Cosmos? I haven't gotten around to dumping them, but they are a sort of art themselves, the dead blossoms, brown and green knots.

It's easy for someone to say, and for an outside expert to say, "Only surround yourself with things you love," the subtext being, you should love this, not that. Only this is beautiful, not that, it's ugly.

Know thyself, as they say. Know what makes you happy. What you think is beautiful. What you really love. It may not be the perfectly clear desk with an orchid sitting on it. (Orchids are the one plant that I just can't keep alive.)

Controlling the stuff in your home will only happen if you are aware of what you want and need, not what you think you should want and need.

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