Konmari & Me: A Book and Life Review

Yesterday I sent my friend a picture of the inside of my bathroom cabinet. Note the items on the second shelf, ascending joyfully from left to right. I’m eagerly awaiting a picture of my friend’s underwear drawer.

Why? A best-selling little pastel green book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. It seems like all the ladies (Sorry for the profiling, guys. I’ll edit this once I meet a guy fan.) in my neighborhood/ Facebook feed are tidying.

This book enters a crowded field of tough-love decluttering books (also this parody), devoted to saving pathetic acquisitive pack-ratters like me from the soul-deadening, life-shortening, dagnabbed frustrating heaps of our own stuff. Don’t love it/use it/have a place for it! Toss that ol’ thang! Clutter is the enemy!

KonMari (a Japanesey cutening of the author’s name, Marie Kondo) is kind of the Hello Kitty of decluttering drill sergeants. She encourages a “tidying marathon” leading to respectable Dumpster-loads of discarded stuff.

But instead of reviling clutter, we are to hold each possession in our hands, and to keep only those that “spark joy.” And after determining which things spark joy, we are to lavish them with care and attention.

Konmari comes off as just a little nuts (charming, but nuts). She passionately describes the feelings of inanimate objects, encouraging tidyers to respectfully thank each object before chucking it. And some of her feng-shui-flavored organizing mandates work best if you happen to live in a Japanese home, with its distinctive deep closets designed to hold folding futons during the day.

Unlike other declutterers, Konmari acknowledges that each possession at one time sparked an emotion that caused us to bring it into the house. And that a precious few material objects enhance our lives and bring us joy. That it feels good to live in an orderly place surrounded by our most beloved objects.

I think that focus on gratitude and acknowledgement of the pleasure-bringing qualities of our earthly possessions is what’s rocketed her to 60 some-odd weeks on the bestseller list. Questions? You can find me lavishing appreciation on my great-grandmother’s bread knife (hand-carved handle is wobbly, but the blade still cuts like a boss.) Or polishing my humble but trusty stapler.

Just for Fun

Becky, my best friend of 20 years, loves long-term, visionary goals. She’s got hers all worked out: multiple advanced degrees, world travel, and ballroom dance championships. I love hearing about her goal-setting and -achieving prowess.

Thing is, she wants me to be happy too, so she keeps asking what my goals are. I have a couple of writing goals, well-defined and underway, which are way too boring to talk about in polite (non-writer) society. My husband and I will go back to Japan someday. And Becky and I have a major bit of world travel planned for the (non-specified) year we both turn 50.

But, she asks, what else? I draw a blank. I have an advanced degree, and absolutely no desire to get another (Fiction rejection letters are no fun, but they don’t hold a candle to academic rejection letters: ten pages long, with no breath of hope at the end for publication. People get tenure for writing these monsters, and they take them seriously.)

OK, there is something. Actually, two somethings.

     • Learn to ice-skate.

     • Learn to play the banjo.

Along with the aforementioned writing goals, that is seriously the sum-total of my bucket list. We’re not talking “compete in some hifalutin adult figure skating division” or “start a bluegrass band and open for Rascal Flatts.”  Just ice skating and banjo-playing.

Because my daughter wanted to take skating lessons, and because Becky kept bugging me, I signed up for grown-up skating lessons six weeks ago.

I am amazed at how much I love it.

I probably do not look like I’m having fun. I look like I’m terrified of falling down, mostly because I’m terrified of falling down. I haven’t achieved any noticeable level of proficiency. And it kind of hurts.

So why is it fun? No idea.

But I spend all week with a background tickly feeling of excitement because I’m learning to ice skate!

Next, we should go on to the paragraph about how my muscles are getting toned, and my grace and confidence have increased, and I’m making better food choices by thinking What Would Michelle Kwan Eat?

We will cover all that if any of it ever happens.

For now, it’s simply and only fun.  And the fun, all by itself, feels like a health benefit.

Anyone know where I can pick up a used banjo?

On the salutary effects of incendiary facial hair

So, Buffy, Hammer, and I are outside the university art museum, and there are all these fire trucks out front. Out back, there's a little knot of fire fighters, but no obvious emergency.

Then, at the head of the reflecting pool, we see it: a wide, black monolith holding a steel outline of a giant mustache.* And the mustache is on fire!

We giggled, snorted, and guffawed all the way across campus. Giant mustache! On fire! Hello, 911? My mustache is on fire! (OK, maybe you had to be there.) I could hardly breathe. Continence was a problem.

Then Hammer looked at me, eyes wide with delight. "Mom's laughing!"

Once I'd gotten over the giant, flaming mustache, this made me think. Our family loves a gut-busting, drink-spewed-out-the-nose laugh. It lingers all afternoon, both in little giggling aftershocks and in a general feeling of having shared something wonderful. Cuts right through teenage and tweenage angst, and parental exasperation. But if the kids are astonished to see me howling in glee, then by golly, we're not LAUGHING enough!

So now I actively pursue stuff for us to laugh at. Some of it comes naturally: we're kneeling in a circle for family prayer, and the cat settles himself in the center of the circle, as though we're praying to him. This is good for at least five minutes of hilarity. God doesn't seem to mind waiting. I also seed the reading areas with Calvin and Hobbes, the iPods with Weird Al, and the DVD player Abbott and Costello or the Marx Brothers. You just can't laugh with your brother and be mad at him at the same time.

Just don't light his mustache on fire—'kay?


*Andrew Sexton, Self Portrait, 2006, steel, rubber tubing and propane, 19 x 66 in. Brigham Young University Museum of Art "Mirror Mirror" exhibit. October 2009.

Thanks, Shaun White

I must not have been paying attention to the Winter Olympics lately, because there are some way-out sports this year I’d never heard of before. Freestyle moguls? Board cross? I watch with jaw on floor.

So far, though, Shaun White totally owns the Olympics for our family. He’d already won halfpipe when it was his turn for his second run. He even joked that he could just slide straight down the middle if he wanted. Instead, he blew his own gold-medal score off the board with an incredible set of flips, twists, and spins that made my whole family leap to our feet, clapping, shouting, and laughing.

Thanks, Shaun White—for that grin, too.



One question remains. What if half-pipe had been invented 400 years ago, and figure skating were invented tomorrow? Would half-pipe take place indoors, with sequins and chiffon, and would figure skaters shred over an outdoor lake in parkas that look like flannel shirts and snow pants that look like bluejeans?

Just asking...

I am not a wildlife photographer

This time last year, a single mom moved in near our house, reared a lovely family, then moved out. This year, she's back, fixing up the house, and preparing to raise another family. If I were a wildlife photographer, and if my windows were cleaner, I'd show you the tiny nest made mostly of dead crabapple blossoms, on the remains of last year's nest. Instead, here's a picture (by RBerteig) that looks exactly like "my" nest. For a lot more fabulous hummer photos, go here.