There are dark and terrible moments when I feel that I shall never get it all together.

Thursday, August 02, 2001

There are dark and terrible moments when I feel that I shall never get it all together. I have a whole bookcase full of nothing but how-to-get-it-all-together books-&uot;Clutter’s Last Stand,&uot; &uot;Organizing from the Inside Out,&uot; &uot;Taming the Paper Tiger,&uot;-you name it, I’ve got it. Study these books as I will, though, nothing gets any better.

When I retired my great aim, if you will remember, was to get my blue room in order. An upstairs room, my blue room, so-called because I painted it myself in a rather deep shade of blue, is where my computer, two desks, a large press, six file cabinets and a couple or three portable file boxes live.

Somewhat wistfully I recall that my mission of getting said room tidied was more or less accomplished, with the help of countless friends. Some of whom, though I regret to say it, were quite nasty about it.

Chris Schocker, for one, still speaks in hushed tones about having opened the press to find a number of plastic boxes on the shelves. What seemed to upset her was that the boxes were empty.

It always seems to me that an empty box is indicative of having cleared something away. Unfortunately what I clear away seems to wind up in the middle of the floor in the middle of the room.

My mother used to speak harshly of this tendency on my part, too. I remember her saying that her grandmother, a minister’s wife, always felt that having the main part of the room neat at the cost of having cluttered drawers and shelves was a form of hypocrisy. My mother always ended by saying, &uot;She worried about possible hypocrisy. I don’t know what your problem is.&uot;

I don’t know what my problem is either, except that I have a tendency to acquire things. Notebooks for instance. I always have the feeling that one can’t have too many notebooks. For several years after I left The Tribune the powers that were at that time, knowing my weakness, always presented me with a reporters notebook, when I crossed The Tribune threshold. A beautiful gesture! Some of those notebooks accompanied me to far away places. Some of them were used in vain attempts to help me balance my check book. I have always loved life, but now and then find it a trifle complicated.

Adding to my problems is the fact that I’m a sleep walker. Both my parents walked in their sleep, and I have at least one cousin willing to admit that he does so. He’s actually a cousin once removed, but very bright. Back when he graduated from the school of journalism at the University of Nebraska he was awarded a golden &uot;N&uot; for his outstanding scholarship.

He walked in his sleep while still a child and his worried parents consulted a physician, who told them it was nothing to worry about. &uot;People who walk in their sleep are people who can’t find time when awake to do all the things they want to do. So they keep on trying when asleep.&uot;

It used to puzzle me that when awake I had difficulty walking up or down stairs without tripping over one or the other of my two cats that lived with me at the time, whereas when I was sound asleep there was no problem.

On one of my nightly walks I managed to move the heavy old fashioned upright piano in the living room out to the middle of the floor. Wide awake it was far too heavy for me to budge. I had to call a neighbor in to help me restore it to its rightful place.

Unfortunately it’s when I’m asleep that I get worried about my house not being organized as it should be. So I amble about putting things away and it sometimes takes weeks to find them again.

I remember spending a long weekend with a friend on his houseboat in Iowa on the Mississippi. The thought did pass through my mind that if I walked in my sleep off the boat I hoped I’d swim in my sleep to the surface instead of seeking the depths. I also wondered how he’d explain my disappearance, if in my sleep I swam in the wrong direction.

Anyway at the moment I’ve misplaced a book, and a file folder with some needed papers in it. Hunting for these items has reduced my blue room to the same chaos in which it started and I am overwhelmed with a profound sense of discouragement.

The trouble is I just can’t bear to throw anything away, Christmas cards, birthday cards, letters, newspaper clippings. Ah, well, I must go and read another of my books on getting it all together.

Love Cruikshank is an Albert Lea resident. Her column appears Thursdays.