Stuff Stream Redux

Your Stuff Stream is the path that your stuff takes as it makes its way (or not) through your house, from the moment it enters your front door, metaphorically speaking, until it leaves by the back

Along the way, it resides in various places, like your refrigerator, drawers, closets, shelves, counter tops, the bottom of your closet, clothes rods and hangers, boxes of all kinds, jars, mugs (often used to hold pens, not just tea or coffee), plastic bags, trash cans (hold not just trash or garbage, but rolls of wrapping paper or extra curtain rods, anything long and thin, really), file folders, ottomans, wicker baskets . . . . The list is long.

As an example, sort of an easy one. (But really, none of this is easy.)

Garbage. We take the lettuce out of the bag, wash it, spin it, break it up, pour salad dressing on it, eat it (For some, lettuce is just a vehicle for salad dressing. That's O.K.). Then, you know, we "eliminate" it, we flush, it goes to our septic tank or to the waste water treatment plant, then to the river, and on downstream.

And the plastic bag? Sometimes it goes into the garbage can, or we recycle it. Or we reuse it.

Here's where Stuff Stream basics kick in. If the bag goes into the garbage can, that's pretty straightforward. Then it goes to the garbage bins outside, then to the landfill.

But if we recycle it, what does that look like? If you don't have a Stuff Stream set up for it, it can sit on the counter for God knows how long, until the tiny lettuce particles turn brown and slimy,or the bag gets wet, and it's in the way and you can't wipe down the counter properly, and the water drifts over to that little piece of paper that you wrote down an important phone number using washable marker by the phone, and the number blurs and you can no longer read the number, so you guess, but it's the wrong number, and after trying only twice, the woman at the other end gets really mad at you.

The same thing is true if you want to reuse it. It sits out on the counter forever. The little lettuce particles turn black and slimy, and you'll never be able to use it now, so it goes in the garbage and you lose sleep over the fact that the plastic bag is now roaming around the street and will inevitably join another stuff stream, a stream of plastic crap that will surely one day wind up in an egret's stomach.

So. You need somewhere for the plastic bag to "perch" (Bad pun. Sorry, Mr. Egret!) so that it can dry out, and then you can recycle it or use it again. If the bag has held any vegetable matter I just turn it inside out, shake it out, and put it on one of those plastic bag driers, a wooden thing made with tiny dowels that looks like an upside down Christmas tree. Sometimes I put the bag over a dowel, but most often I just toss it in top. I also have a bunch of clothes pins attached to my apron (which I never wear) hanging up on the wall. If it's a bigger bag, I clip it to that, and then I actually forget about it, and then one day, Aha! there's just the right sized bag that I need.

Marie Kondo must be turning over in her grave of unloved items. Nothing elegant about that Stuff Stream.

So many conclusions can be drawn from my one example.

Let's focus on the practical ones, not the judgy ones. (One judgy one: Don't use plastic bags. But, really . . . .)

All of our stuff needs somewhere to go, or it will sit on the counter and rot, or gather dust, or get in the way, be knocked on the floor and be broken. The cat will inevitably upchuck on it, or if it's on the floor, the dog will lift his leg, such a convenient spot, for the leg-lifting, but not for you if you want to use it.

The place our stuff needs to rest or perch or chill out, once it comes in the house and before it says "good bye" doesn't have to be pretty or elegant or expensive. We don't even have to love it. It can be a brown paper bag or a cardboard box, or a plastic bin, or a clothes pin attached to an apron, or a simple shelf or drawer, anything really with a lid, or even without a lid. There can be some rationale to the organization or not. There can be some reason to the madness, or not.

We're not going for perfection, here. On this site, never. No magic here. Remember, magic isn't magic, either.

We're not going for love, or grace, or even spirit. This is the "just do it" site. Then YOU, not your stuff, will find love, walk gracefully, and feel your spirit come alive.