Surfacing

I can finally see the surface of my kitchen table. There'd been quite a hillock of paper and books and other things there for awhile. I won't say how long, but it was long enough that it was really stressing me out. I have a method when things get so overwhelming I can't face the task. I won't say what it is because it's embarrassing, but it works. Ultimately, it consists of breaking up the task into really tiny pieces.

I've been bringing some things home from Mom's and need to rethink how I'm using my space. It's a tiny apartment so there's not a lot of room for too many things. There's no basement, garage, or attic, so when I bring in new things I have to think about whether I need to get rid of other things.

There are two impulses I'm feeling these days. One is to create a new beginning for myself. The other is to hold on to everything and not let anything go. I hope the new beginning wins out. We need new beginnings to refresh things every now and then, and things have felt stale with the constricting energy of Covid. 

I've been thinking about cleaning out and reorganizing the two closets in my kitchen. It feels like a big job and I'd need to do it in a day. Otherwise, I'll be back to the feeling of overwhelm in my space. The lure of it is tempting, but I also know myself well enough to know that it's hard for me to get rid of anything. I think it's genetic. 

For now, I'm happy to have a usable kitchen table again. It looks so nice with the small buffet I brought back from Mom's the other day. It feels good to have a little bit of home at home. It does not ease the feelings of loss and grief I feel over my mother's death, but it does feel good to know that when Mom's house is sold there will be a little piece of it here and at my brothers' homes. The dining room was always one of my favorite spaces in our family homes. There were so many beautiful gatherings in those spaces. So much love, good food, enjoyment, celebrations. It's strange to think about the holiday season coming up. 

Maybe I'll just let that go for another time.

 

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.