Balancing

The shelf next to my desk is a mess. Piles, piles, and piles. Things I should do or should have done. Things I haven't let go. Things I haven't put away. The mess distracts me.

In my email is a Paul Jarvis piece about enough that has me thinking about the difference between what I want and what I need. I want the shelf clear, but what I need isn't as obvious.

I make pushes toward minimalism. They are half-hearted. I like the minimalist idea, but I love the facts of family life and the clutter of living. I'm in the living room where my daughters' paintings hang on the walls, knick-knacks from friends and family decorate the mantel, and blankets are strewn on the comfy couch. I wouldn't change much of it.

As for the messy shelf, some of it I'll put away after this, but much of it is in limbo. I have a couple projects there that I'm not ready to abandon but on which I'm not ready to work. The shelf is a parking lot. It looks messy but it doesn't mess much with my life. Not unless I think about it too much.

Jarvis's concept of enough I call balance. I imagine that tightrope walkers don't remain long in balance as they cross the wire. Balance is something we return to. We fall out of balance, wave our arms madly, and hope to come back into balance before we fall, but we are always moving out of balance. We can also keep working to return to balance.

Minimalism, enough, messes, balance, these are all transient states. Accepting that, I look over at the shelf and see less mess, more possibility.

I've written often about wanting a clean desk, but I'm often working on something new that comes to me in scraps and loose pages, notebooks and computers, file folders and empty coffee cups. The mess accumulates. Wanting a constantly clean desk is a fool's game. Returning to a clean desk, that's an art.

I'm ready to clear off some of my desk and shelf now. It might give me some ideas.