Xmas Wrapup

'Twas the night after Christmas and all through the day
There were signs that the children had done more than play.
Of the living room rug we had long since lost sight
As its burden of paper grew, morning till night.
And the ribbons and bows that had graced every gift
Lay scattered and splattered, too many to lift,
And to tell who gave what we were no longer certain
Except when a label popped out from a curtain.
To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall
There was plastic and paper and boxes and all.

With his motions impeded by oceans of plastic
The Grinch who lives with us might do something drastic,
Absent some effort to clean up the place,
To pick up the boxes, to clear out some space.

He no sooner had vowed not to do it himself,
When someone stepped forward: a right jolly elf,
And smiling and waving, she came on the scene
With a sack she held tight that was plastic and green,
Then she spoke not a word but went straight to the floor
And she picked up the papers, the ribbons and more
And she stuffed the sack with them and giving a nod,
Handed them off to her deer partner, T__d.

It was good while it lasted, but far from complete,
For the plastic still catches the old Grinch's feet
There are pieces of toys that belong in a box
That somehow get caught in the toes of his socks,
And sharp things that pierce through the sole or the heel
That none but the Grinch who lives with us can feel,
And things that are larger and easy to trip
And fracture a thigh or a hip or a lip.
Though no one else sees them the Grinch knows they're there,
So he's painting a sign, "Let the traveler beware".
And he's staying confined to his dark, tiny room,
For no matter how dank or how musty the gloom,
He prefers to be thought somewhat iconoclastic
To ending his days as the victim of plastic.

Mess-merized.

As you get older, does time seem to move faster for you or slower? If, like me, you are still working for a living, chances are it seems to move faster. There are not enough hours in the day, days in the week, weeks in the month nor months in the year to accommodate all that you have/would like to do. When you were younger, you had time to waste. Now, wasting time seems like a waste of time.

But then again, perhaps it is really a simple matter of being disorganized. It's not that I forget to write things down that I need to do. It's more that I forget to look at the list. Or maybe that I forget where I left the list. Or maybe I can't find my glasses to read the list.

Millions of philosophical nuggets have been authored over the years on this business of time and energy and work. Most of it falls into the Get Organized school of thought, which seems to suggest that if only you get into the habit of thinking ahead, you'll be successful. Hang up the clothes you'll need for tomorrow where you can easily get at them. Make your lunches for next week on Sunday evening, and freeze the ones for Tuesday through Friday. Keep a list of the foods you have in your freezer by date so nothing will go past its best by date. Set aside a specific time to do laundry, to vacuum, to do the dishes, to read, to meditate, to pick your nose....

The wonder of it all is, it works for some, and not for others. By the time I've read the self-help stuff on getting organized, there's no time left to get organized: another week is upon me.

Complicating all of this confusion is the environment of living in a house of three generations. I swore I would avoid this eventuality at any cost, but the Robert Frost's Law of Returning Offspring ('Home is the place where, when you have to go there/They have to take you in') has resulted in a kind of compound interest effect when it comes to disorganization.

Although I was brought up in a house that was probably less than 800 square feet on the ground floor, I now believe that children cannot be raised in any house that is less than 2000 sq. ft. in floor space. Why is this? Because of the proliferation of plastic. We live in a polymer paradise. For every phase of childhood, there is now something made out of plastic or encased in plastic that is vital to their well-being; something without which the young person will inevitably be unable to achieve a wholesome adulthood. And the best of these creations, such as play saucers and cribs and storybooks, will turn out to have been the ones that required alkaline 9-volt batteries for their operation.

Part of the function of these devices and the flotsam and jetsam that bobs in their wake is to slow me down, to make my progress more arduous. A simple walk to the door in the morning typically requires navigation through the treacherous shoals of multi-geometric shapes which fit inside some sort of octahedron that is not currently in the same room. It has not, in fact, been seen in this room for some time. These plastic triangles, rectangles, stars and squares have cleverly-designed thin edges that are guaranteed to immobilize any unsuspecting instep for at least several minutes.

In a similar vein, the closet doors are often wedged open by shoes belonging behind the opposite door. Because they have stepped out into the pathway and taken up a position, the range of movement of the door to my side of the closet is severely limited.

There can be only one karmic reason for this mode of living. I am meant to slow down. It's time to set my eyes toward the earth, to be more grounded, to notice what is around me for the sake of my own well-being. I cannot forever be rushing forward in hot, heedless pursuit of what captivates me at the moment. The time to achieve goals is past. The time to take note of where I am and what I am doing is upon me.

I need no more self-help than a good pair of glasses. Now where the hell did I leave them?