I am trying to write about de-cluttering but am distracted by the pain in my left thumb. Why is it that hangnails seem insignificant yet grab and hold our attention with annoying persistence? This one is down under the lowest point of my thumbnail and just had to assert its little twiggy self, popping out like a secret trap just waiting to be flicked. Every time I graze it against something the pain flares up again. Just as annoying is the knowledge, hard won over many years, that there’s no instant fix for this problem. I am not a patient person and I have tried various remedies, up to and including using my teeth as tweezers. Yeowch. I know that healing takes time and there will be bumps and setbacks along the way.

My belongings that fill my home have plenty of sparky potential and Marie Kondo is wise. I read her book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I then spent six weeks avoiding writing about the topic…for many reasons, the largest being I felt like a hypocrite.

My house is full. I have an intense desire to turn it upside down and shake it until it is empty. If I could do that, I would not want to put anything back in until I was able to prepare it properly.  First, I would want to clean all the surfaces, inside and out, with sweat born of love, honoring my deep gratitude that I own this place on earth. Then, I would plant seeds of wood furniture, fine cookware, colorful art, and warm rugs.   

It isn’t the physical items in my home that seem exhausting to sort, let go of, organize.  I like that idea, actually. I do occasionally take on a cabinet, drawer, or room in need of attention. Shedding is a natural household process.   

I think what is forcing my literary rebellion against Marie Kondo is despite or in addition to clearing out space in my home, I feel a need to do this for my saturated mind and spirit. I meditate and pray daily in hopes that my mind will be empty, free of cluttering thoughts, feelings, and competing emotions about people I care deeply for. If my mind is full, I want it to be of light, happy emotions. I want the Dalai Lama’s smile inside my heart. I want an Olympic level of skill at letting go of and turning inside out any pain. I want to convert emotional suffering to joy, love, and happiness. I am a humble beginner at this sport but also a believer in learning, changing, becoming. So I’m aiming high.

Marie Kondo says you should ask whether particular items spark joy. A lot of people seem to be obsessed with this question and to be finding that the answer is, most of the time, “no.” Apparently, thrift stores are overflowing with items right now. But I am more interested in experiences and the emotions connected to them. Those, I don’t seem to be able to let go so easily – especially as they relate to people I love dearly.   

Trauma isn’t easily shaken free and has a long tail of powerful, confusing emotions that I wish I could pack up, send away, or give to some researcher to benefit others. At the same time, there are experiences I want to remember and can’t seem to access.  I have many times nodded and laughed with my childhood friend Elaine as if I held the same details of our boy-spying days, yet remember nothing. Was I there? Most of my memories are packed away in my brain somewhere, wrapped up in a box. They seem dormant until something triggers first a hint, then a sure clear detail that sparks a replay in my brain like a snippet of a movie. Often, the sharpness of difficult emotions is softened in the replay and unlike with trauma, I don’t re-experience the emotions, like anger at seeing my sister and brother fighting or fear at seeing my mother crying. These snippets, experiences, and attached emotions are taking up space somewhere in my brain. They must require energy or some kind of passkey to access. Is there some form of anatomical and physical code that our mind uses to store and bring forth memories and emotions?

For me, music is the fastest trigger to access deep emotions and the connected memories. When I hear the theme song to Sesame Street, I feel my knees touching the rough brown carpet in my parents’ living room. Hearing the Christmas song “Drummer Boy” takes me back to laughing with my neighborhood girlfriends at the piano with Mrs. Richardson as each kid came into the song with their own “drumming” beat of ‘bum, bum, da, bum, bum, bum, bummmm.’

These memories and the associated energies – positive with happy memories and negative with dark and sad memories – are part of living, feeling, being connected to people. The challenge for me, which I know and struggle with, is to acknowledge and sit with those emotions that are difficult such as fear and sadness. Not dealing with these emotions or pretending I am not feeling them is like ignoring that hangnail in hopes that it will heal without my doing anything, when in actuality I am bumping into things and reopening the wound several times a day. Sometimes things do just heal, it’s true. Sometimes just ripping the sucker off works too, in the long run, but that can be painful and not a very pretty or satisfying approach. And sometimes you can carefully use proper tools to hasten the healing process along. What’s the proper tool for mental hangnails? That’s a question I continue to contemplate.