Days of Weeds and Roses

The Roses of Success (from Chitty Chitty Bang! Bang!)

Every bursted bubble has a glory!
Each abysmal failure makes a point!

Every glowing path that goes astray,
Shows you how to find a better way.

So every time you stumble never grumble.
Next time you'll bumble even less!

For up from the ashes,
up from the ashes, grow the roses of success!
Grow the roses!
Grow the roses!
From the ashes of disaster grow the roses of success!

Spring has come and gone in my neck of the woods. The plum trees are sprouting green plums and the weeds are cropping up in the decomposed granite pathway we put in last summer. (The one I was guaranteed could not be penetrated if weedcloth was underlain—it was—and could not germinate a newly fallen seed.)

As I weeded this path and the beds around it, I began to think of the similarities between gardening and organizing. (And by the way, gardening is a wonderful activity to help you restore focus and increase the capacity of your pre-frontal cortex, helping you to make decisions.)

I thought about last spring when I was hand-pulling weeds from a dense patch in our backyard. California poppies and Miner’s Lettuce (aka Indian Lettuce) were sprouting up between the weeds. Miner’s Lettuce is a lovely native spring salad green that pops up for free in my yard. I wished to save both these species and rid myself of all the other nasty things.

I kept thinking about how this was so much like helping a client wade through mountains of “stuff,” carefully separating treasures from the junk—the weeds from the wildflowers. And how even the wildflowers were creating shelter from the sun (giving comfort to the enemy in my view) for the evil weeds underneath. I had to be extra-careful in my weeding.

This is often true in a client’s home. All the “good stuff” is just creating more hiding spaces for junk, creating more surfaces for dust, and creating shelter for spiders and other crawlies as well. Just as my lovely poppies and lettuce were growing tall, the untended growth beneath of burr clover and other nasties were taking hold, shielded from the hot sun and given a few extra drops of water from their taller, unwitting benefactors. And now and then, I have to sacrifice a "treasure" (a poppy or Miner's Lettuce) in order to get to the "trash" and keep the work going.

We call this section of our yard “The back 40,” not because it is 40 acres, it’s just the last bit we’re trying to landscape ourselves and it seems like 40 acres. It feels overwhelming at times, and the weeds grow back every year. True, there are fewer and fewer each year since we get a little more covered by weed cloth and bark or pathway. But there’s always more. Yet, I know that if I take it on a little at a time—even just get to a few feet of path, I will make headway. And when the weather turns too warm, I will adjust my weeding to the morning hours before the sun beats upon me and wilts me more quickly than the lettuce.

This is the same advice I give clients—if it all seems overwhelming, just take your time and do a little bit every day, even if it just a square foot. Work when you are at your best—be it in the morning or midnight. Know yourself and your own peak times...before you wilt, too.

Garden of Intention
Right now, I am still reacting to what my garden brings me—namely, weeds in new places. I haven’t planted much, i.e. not much has been intentional. Well, we have had some work done, and we accomplished a few projects last summer, but we are still “reacting” to the weeds, and having to re-work areas that if we had finished sooner, we wouldn’t have to deal with weeds (or as many) this year. But again, bit by bit. Little by little. Patience and more “intention” to what we do in the garden. “Own” more if it rather than it owning us. Still allowing for nature’s surprises here and there.

Now go grow your roses!

When Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

NAPO (National Association of Professional Organizers) 2008 conference...
Outstanding!

Veggie Food at/during conference...
Mediocre

Veggie Food at hotel...
Very bad

Veggie Food at The Pneumatic Diner in Reno...
Outstanding!

Having a conference in a casino...
Worst idea since ... gee, I can't think of what was worse!

Hundred acre wood a-ha moment!

I proved one of my own points last week.

While in the midst of a full-on Disneyland-induced ADD moment, I was surprised by a moment of peace, sanity and clarity.

We had taken our young daughter for a two-day visit to the realm of Mickey, princesses, and churro-laced mania. (By the way, the churros are really good.)

It was the morning of day two, and we had already decided that the line for the Nemo submarine ride was too long and we would head straight over to "Critter Country" to see the Winnie the Pooh area and ride. (Good idea–it was the only ride we were able to hop right on.)

Thank goodness we did.

As soon as we got there, I felt a wonderful sensation come over me. I felt calmer, more focused and less frenzied. I took a look around and figured out why.

Critter Country was filled with large green trees (most of them real), lots of wooden structures (most of them not real), and lovely wooden benches to sit on. It was the closest thing to real nature I was going to get in this land of fakery.

The point I proved is this: the natural world can help you focus and calm your mind. It's the basis for my Organize in Harmony offspring: Organized by Nature.

I'll be bringing this aspect to my regular practice more and more in the coming months: using Mother Nature to help us calm our minds and bring focus to what we are doing with our organizing projects. Something about green trees that lets our pre-frontal cortex do a RAM-dump and start with a clean disk.

It can be as easy as sitting in your backyard for 5 minutes or taking a walk in your neighborhood and observing the trees and flowers. Or maybe getting in the car and visiting a city, county or state park and immersing yourself for an hour or two. Or a national park and immersing yourself for a day or two (a week or two?). Or even just a little meditation at your cubicle while listening to a nature sounds CD.

Just don't think you have to go to Critter Country.

(But the churros are really good....)

Persimmon Tree, Very Pretty

The garden metaphors for organizing just keep coming at me. Not that I'm really doing much gardening, although I'm thinking about it. Besides, it's raining now, so I CAN'T go out and garden...

As it is softly misting in my back yard, I can see that our little persimmon tree is beginning to leaf out. (Yes, this is California and we've been having a beautiful–and early–Spring.)

This tree is a survivor like no other. When we bought this house about 3 years ago, it was quite tall and even had some persimmons on it. But it was misshapen and a very sad thing to look at. It is near our back fence, which had a huge growth of blackberries on the other side. These things are prehistoric remnants that I know will cover the earth someday if we ever do have a cataclysmic event. They and the cockroaches will rule. But I digress....

Not only had the blackberry vines entwined themselves into this tree, but a climbing rose had also declared the persimmon its habitat. It was a tall tree, but it really only had about a fourth of its crown that it should have had. The blackberries and roses had overtaken the tree on the back side and it was only a persimmon tree in the front.

I made the heart-wrenching decision to let the gardener cut it down, thinking I would soon plant one or two redwoods in its place, to complete a row (and privacy to our yard) of three others.

Well, procrastination does have its place now and then, (don't tell anyone I said this), and the next summer, a beautiful, healthy straight shoot came out of the little stump. Since the blackberries and rose had been cut back, it now had all the light and room it needed.

It did branch and leaf out last summer, although it did not bear fruit. It is now entering its second season of its second life, and it is a (shorter) but very beautiful and symmetric tree.

My connection with this tree to organizing? Yes, I'm getting to that.

Think about the clutter you may have in your home or life. Is it choking out the life in you, creating a lopsided version of you because it overshadows who you really are? If you cut it all out, would you then be able to grow straight and tall (so to speak), basking (basquing if you are Portuguese) in the sunlight now available to you? Able to bloom and fruit to your full extent instead of just a small percentage?

Yes, keeping the "blackberries" at bay will be a constant chore, but I can keep up with it a little at a time, especially since I can see how "happy" my persimmon tree is now. And now that I can see its full beauty.

How is your persimmon tree?

Are you ready for a new season with a new life?

Compulsive Hoarding, Part I

I just attended a day-long seminar put on by the Institute on Aging in San Francisco, called Clutter Addiction and Hoarding. This was a completely separate event from the Mental Health Association's annual Conference on Hoarding and Cluttering.

There were at least 200-300 people in attendance. That was the part that astounded me.

I'll be writing more in the next few weeks about the complex issue of Compulsive Hoarding and all the attention it's gotten in the last several months–special episodes on Oprah, Dr. Phil and all those organizing shows, some of which touch on the most severe cases only occasionally.

This issue has finally come "out of the closet" so to speak. Well it had to because the closet was full.

I had never known about hoarding personally while growing up, although my parents did help "clean" a friend's house after she had broken her wrist and ankle. They had described to me what they found. (Absolutely all the earmarks of a hoarder, as I now know.) Little trails through the house–the only place you could walk. Piles of papers and stuff. Present after present that had never been given away. Just another crazy social worker, I thought.

I've been studying the issue of hoarding ever since I joined the NSGCD (National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization) in 2005. It was fascinating. I wanted to know more and certainly be "prepared" for when I might have a client in this situation. What have I learned? Oh, so much. And that it's hard to be truly prepared.

What I have learned is this: compulsive hoarding is as much a disease as alcoholism is. It's hard to understand, difficult to live with (or impossible) and there's no easy cure. That's what researchers are looking at now--how can people who have this issue be helped? What really is the problem? Is it in the brain? In the mind? In the heart? A combination of all these? I think yes.

What has become clear to me is not the answers, but the questions that now must be asked.

How do we help?

How do we fund this help?

How can we remain compassionate while looking for the answers and trying to help?

How do we get communities involved?

Since this is such a closeted illness, researchers are hard-pressed to give accurate numbers as to how many among us might have hoarding issues. One or two percent? Possibly 5%. That means in every large church group of 500 or more, there are 5 to 25 people who are living with this illness and maybe many more who are affected–children, relatives, friends, even pets.

In the next few installments, I will define Compulsive Hoarding, talk about the "what-not-to-dos" that well-meaning friends or loved ones might think is right. As well as give some resources for help. And probably come up with a few more questions. Maybe someone out there has some answers.

If you want more information right away, read "Buried in Treasures" (in the book list at the bottom) or visit the following websites. They have a tremendous amount of information about what this condition is, information to help you help yourself or a loved one, and links to more resources.

This is one iceberg that is just beginning to melt and we are feeling the affects of the flood.

Children of Hoarders
Squalor Survivors
Obsessive Compulsive Foundation Hoarding Website
National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization