There are, I think, several species of the genus mess. There’s the mess that accrues from inertia; there’s the mess that follows a dinner party, or any kind of party, the mess of jubilation’s wake; and there’s the kind of mess I’m in, the mess of half-way, the mess of dismantling your structures in order to understand them and build something better.
It’s very hard to hold on to the promise of better structures while in the midst of mess. Right now, all I see is the absence of stacks, chaos where there was order, even if that order was crowding and oppressive, full of things I didn’t want to look at too closely because I’d be forced to make uncomfortable decisions. In aggregate, everything overwhelms. But whenever I feel a pang of loss for something that was tidy and is now a mess, I find myself imagining order in the new place, something that I will take joy in building from the ground up instead of making do with, something that will be more hospitable to all the parts of me that aren’t whittled into work-shape alone.
I genuinely did not set out to make a metaphor of this Open Thread; I am literally just getting ready to move, which means looking around at all the items that have been background noise for four years and foregrounding them, assessing them, deciding whether to hold on or let go. But messes are also the natural habitat of metaphor, of our pattern-seeking selves trying to make something of it all.
I think we also, usually, want to hide our messes, or apologize for them. It feels presumptuous to ask you about your messes. When someone visits — visited, perhaps I should say, in the beforetimes — it never matters how much I clean beforehand, I’ll still say “sorry for the mess” as friends walk in and mean it, an apology for the gap between reality and my ideal self.
But friends will also not remark on the mess — will, most often, not see it, seeing only you, the friend, in the fullness of that friendship, never lacking, always more than enough.
So in that spirit — please, feel free to tell me of messes. Is there one thing that you need always to be clean? Or something that makes you feel more comfortable the messier it is? Unclench your jaws, let your shoulders drop, and speak to me of messes.
It is a post written by a mother reflecting on how the spaces her children find joy in, do not look very nice in photographs.
I distinguish between mess that is "un-hygenic" (dirty dishes), which I welcome the guilt for, because it encourages me to tackle it. For everything else, my home is for living in, and I welcome it feeling lived to anyone who visits me.
Ah, this one cuts both ways! First, the un-mess: the kitchen. Many years ago, I fell down a slippery slope – the good kind (y’all /did/ know there’s a good kind, right?) I realized that when I’d cleaned up a little during cooking, that it was nice that there was less mess to deal with after. Over time, this snowballed to a habit, now nearly an autonomic response, to clean up continually while cooking. I suspect that I time some cooking activities by the parallel cleaning. If I even walk into the kitchen and there’s a touch of mess, I whirl around and deal with it in mindless and therefore effortless efficiency. It’s very chop-wood-carry-water. What a joy.
On the other hand, a live-in (live-through?!?) remodel has been going on for two long years now, putting much of our space into a sort of permanent “fifteen puzzle” where spaces and things are slowly shuffled into and out-of order and disorder. A sort of tectonic shifting of mess. With occasional messquakes. ugh, so much ugh. Under pandemic, it’s like living in the disintegrating reality of _City at the End of Time_, complete with cats holding down their own little bubbles of orderliness.
I’m naturally so lazy, and a hoarder of things - mostly useful and/or beautiful things I hope, but a hoarder - and I never learned to clean either. At the same time living in untidiness wrecks me in a very real way, and contributed to a lot of the depression that’s haunted me most of my life. I’ve got better at it, or at least have forced myself into routines of cleaning the things that bother me most, and not going to sleep with the dishes undone. I still feel a wash of envy, though, when I visit the houses of friends that are both tidy and beautiful, not the eclectic gallimaufry of mine, barely corralled oddments threatening to burst out of every corner. (I write this sitting in a chair beside a table literally BURIED in the piles of my as yet unread books. I can’t even SPEAK about my email. The entire concept of inbox zero feels like a direct attack.)
Anyway, even staying at home for (how long HAS it been?? Six months!) has proved that literally nothing can get me to vacuum regularly, no matter how much I despise and rage against the gritty feel of dirty floors underfoot. So last week I surrendered and bought a roomba, and because I spend much more time on the internet than is healthy, I named it STB-e. It’s much more delightful than I thought it would be - its chirps of accomplishment or distress, and the oddly animate way it bumbles into its home base - AND the remarkably clean floors I need do barely anything to accomplish! (I’ve ordered STB-e a holographic knife sticker. I think it’ll like it.)
I am a pretty tidy person, but lately I've been noticing myself a mess on Zoom calls -- the disorder of the world is burrowing its way into me, setting everything upside down. I've been talking to people about the importance of keeping a schedule, keeping a routine, when everything is so out of order. I look forward to when I can feel like I can be messy again :/
The stresses of the past six months have manifested as an accretion of stacks and piles. I try—mostly unsuccessfully—to ignore them.
Organized and tidy spaces are a comfort to my brain, but it feels self-indulgent to spend time cleaning up a room that is for me and me alone. Our shared spaces are in perpetual need of work, courtesy of the three minor chaos elementals we’ve conjured into existence. The days are long and those spaces cry more loudly for the attention I have left before sleep.
I’m taking some time off next week in hopes that I can claw back some peace for myself among the piles.
My apartment is a disaster all the time. Both Filip and I are very prone to clutter, so it’s just all kinds of piles of stuff everywhere. Mess is also a problem because I do so many different art things. One hobby is bad enough (yarn & fabric everywhere, paint & canvases everywhere, photography supplies everywhere, clay & ceramic paint & drying pottery everywhere), but I have all of the messes previously listed. Since making a few artist friends and seeing their studio spaces, I’ve started to give myself some slack, since my ,,studio,, is just my living room, and I don’t really have studio storage space to speak of. I guess all my art clutter is why artists have studios, huh?
Spouse and I both have a light version of that interesting ADHD object permanence thing, where if we don't *see* a thing, sometimes we don't remember we have it. I can't put my inks away because I almost repurchased Diamine's Bilberry ... twice. Spouse has ordered the same tube for his brewing three times.
Plus we've moved 7 times in the last 10 years, so we've had to get rid of big furniture pieces that helped us keep the boxes and bins of things sorted. It all adds up to piles of stuff on various folding surfaces, so our small apartment looks like we're still in the process of moving in.
Which, to be fair, we kind of are. We're still trying to figure out how to maximize this small space, and at the same time, we don't want to make a commitment because we're not planning on staying in this apartment for too long. We want to buy a place in which we can have a garden, but which is also not too far away from work. Given that I work in New York City, that's a really tall order, but we're hopeful. So the mess and clutter is not only emblematic of our struggle to keep things tidy when we don't remember things, but also of our travels and our hope for our future life. At least, that's what I tell myself when the mess in the kitchen gets really aggravating. :)
I've been taking the odd Saturday here and there to go to the small storage unit I rent and go through boxes. I'm slowly repacking everything into more efficient spaces, getting rid of stuff I don't really need to keep, and putting it all on rolling wire shelving from Home Depot so that it'll be easier to get onto a truck when I'm in a living space with room for it all. It's still a terrible mess visually, but it's a sensible mess that will make my life easier when the time comes to relocate it.
Moving is actually one of the things that keeps me from being entirely engulfed in stuff. But I still kinda hate it? But there's definitely value to it.
The other thing that helps with messes for me is that in normal times, my partner and I host our friends for dinner about once a month on average. That's our excuse to get our condo in order. But that regular gathering has been happening via zoom since March. So we haven't had reason to clean in the same way, while at the same time being home basically 24/7. It's not the best! But at the same time, there's no one to judge us, and as you say, our friends wouldn't judge anyway. It still weighs on us, though. But that motivation just isn't there. Maybe tomorrow, that's the day we'll really get this place cleaned up! Always tomorrow...
I’ve just started saying, “The house is a mess because I just cleaned up.”
Best of luck with your move!!
I highly recommend this post on scruffy spaces: https://thewholesky.wordpress.com/2020/06/21/on-scruffy-spaces/ It deeply changed my relationship to my home.
It is a post written by a mother reflecting on how the spaces her children find joy in, do not look very nice in photographs.
I distinguish between mess that is "un-hygenic" (dirty dishes), which I welcome the guilt for, because it encourages me to tackle it. For everything else, my home is for living in, and I welcome it feeling lived to anyone who visits me.
Ah, this one cuts both ways! First, the un-mess: the kitchen. Many years ago, I fell down a slippery slope – the good kind (y’all /did/ know there’s a good kind, right?) I realized that when I’d cleaned up a little during cooking, that it was nice that there was less mess to deal with after. Over time, this snowballed to a habit, now nearly an autonomic response, to clean up continually while cooking. I suspect that I time some cooking activities by the parallel cleaning. If I even walk into the kitchen and there’s a touch of mess, I whirl around and deal with it in mindless and therefore effortless efficiency. It’s very chop-wood-carry-water. What a joy.
On the other hand, a live-in (live-through?!?) remodel has been going on for two long years now, putting much of our space into a sort of permanent “fifteen puzzle” where spaces and things are slowly shuffled into and out-of order and disorder. A sort of tectonic shifting of mess. With occasional messquakes. ugh, so much ugh. Under pandemic, it’s like living in the disintegrating reality of _City at the End of Time_, complete with cats holding down their own little bubbles of orderliness.
I’m naturally so lazy, and a hoarder of things - mostly useful and/or beautiful things I hope, but a hoarder - and I never learned to clean either. At the same time living in untidiness wrecks me in a very real way, and contributed to a lot of the depression that’s haunted me most of my life. I’ve got better at it, or at least have forced myself into routines of cleaning the things that bother me most, and not going to sleep with the dishes undone. I still feel a wash of envy, though, when I visit the houses of friends that are both tidy and beautiful, not the eclectic gallimaufry of mine, barely corralled oddments threatening to burst out of every corner. (I write this sitting in a chair beside a table literally BURIED in the piles of my as yet unread books. I can’t even SPEAK about my email. The entire concept of inbox zero feels like a direct attack.)
Anyway, even staying at home for (how long HAS it been?? Six months!) has proved that literally nothing can get me to vacuum regularly, no matter how much I despise and rage against the gritty feel of dirty floors underfoot. So last week I surrendered and bought a roomba, and because I spend much more time on the internet than is healthy, I named it STB-e. It’s much more delightful than I thought it would be - its chirps of accomplishment or distress, and the oddly animate way it bumbles into its home base - AND the remarkably clean floors I need do barely anything to accomplish! (I’ve ordered STB-e a holographic knife sticker. I think it’ll like it.)
Good luck with your move, Amal!
I am a pretty tidy person, but lately I've been noticing myself a mess on Zoom calls -- the disorder of the world is burrowing its way into me, setting everything upside down. I've been talking to people about the importance of keeping a schedule, keeping a routine, when everything is so out of order. I look forward to when I can feel like I can be messy again :/
The mess in my office is weighing on me.
The stresses of the past six months have manifested as an accretion of stacks and piles. I try—mostly unsuccessfully—to ignore them.
Organized and tidy spaces are a comfort to my brain, but it feels self-indulgent to spend time cleaning up a room that is for me and me alone. Our shared spaces are in perpetual need of work, courtesy of the three minor chaos elementals we’ve conjured into existence. The days are long and those spaces cry more loudly for the attention I have left before sleep.
I’m taking some time off next week in hopes that I can claw back some peace for myself among the piles.
My apartment is a disaster all the time. Both Filip and I are very prone to clutter, so it’s just all kinds of piles of stuff everywhere. Mess is also a problem because I do so many different art things. One hobby is bad enough (yarn & fabric everywhere, paint & canvases everywhere, photography supplies everywhere, clay & ceramic paint & drying pottery everywhere), but I have all of the messes previously listed. Since making a few artist friends and seeing their studio spaces, I’ve started to give myself some slack, since my ,,studio,, is just my living room, and I don’t really have studio storage space to speak of. I guess all my art clutter is why artists have studios, huh?
Spouse and I both have a light version of that interesting ADHD object permanence thing, where if we don't *see* a thing, sometimes we don't remember we have it. I can't put my inks away because I almost repurchased Diamine's Bilberry ... twice. Spouse has ordered the same tube for his brewing three times.
Plus we've moved 7 times in the last 10 years, so we've had to get rid of big furniture pieces that helped us keep the boxes and bins of things sorted. It all adds up to piles of stuff on various folding surfaces, so our small apartment looks like we're still in the process of moving in.
Which, to be fair, we kind of are. We're still trying to figure out how to maximize this small space, and at the same time, we don't want to make a commitment because we're not planning on staying in this apartment for too long. We want to buy a place in which we can have a garden, but which is also not too far away from work. Given that I work in New York City, that's a really tall order, but we're hopeful. So the mess and clutter is not only emblematic of our struggle to keep things tidy when we don't remember things, but also of our travels and our hope for our future life. At least, that's what I tell myself when the mess in the kitchen gets really aggravating. :)
I've been taking the odd Saturday here and there to go to the small storage unit I rent and go through boxes. I'm slowly repacking everything into more efficient spaces, getting rid of stuff I don't really need to keep, and putting it all on rolling wire shelving from Home Depot so that it'll be easier to get onto a truck when I'm in a living space with room for it all. It's still a terrible mess visually, but it's a sensible mess that will make my life easier when the time comes to relocate it.
Moving is actually one of the things that keeps me from being entirely engulfed in stuff. But I still kinda hate it? But there's definitely value to it.
The other thing that helps with messes for me is that in normal times, my partner and I host our friends for dinner about once a month on average. That's our excuse to get our condo in order. But that regular gathering has been happening via zoom since March. So we haven't had reason to clean in the same way, while at the same time being home basically 24/7. It's not the best! But at the same time, there's no one to judge us, and as you say, our friends wouldn't judge anyway. It still weighs on us, though. But that motivation just isn't there. Maybe tomorrow, that's the day we'll really get this place cleaned up! Always tomorrow...