A Pile of Bricks

You could call me a collector. It might even fit better than any of my other hats. Sure I write, sure I art, sure I cook, but deep down I have a collection. What my collection contains is much harder to explain.

For so long I’ve been cataloguing. I remember when I first started reading books seriously as a “prize winning” English student. I would use a piece of notebook paper folded and folded again, as a guide for my wandering eyes and then when coming against a word I didn’t know, I would look it up, unfold and write it down. So too if I came upon a sentence or a paragraph that awed me. Unfold and scribble the page number and the beginning and end of the quote with an ellipsis between.

In therapy I’ve been talking about loops and change. About the things that don’t seem to be working in my life (dating mostly, lol), and how I need to break out of my patterns. As such, it was in trying to explain why I catalogue so many things (my mental health, my workouts, my recipes, etc), that I found a defensiveness. I had never really examined my collection for more than inventory purposes, maybe the odd existential wondering. But with my new, emotional awareness I had to ask, what is the collecting for?

If I rifle through my bag of feelings, the first thing I’d find is the feeling of preparedness. The Boy Scout code, the feeling of comfort when mommy has the thing you need in her purse. There is utility for sure. I was raised by a Navy dad. Preparedness prevents piss poor performance, after all (“he never said this I think I heard it in a war movie or something”). But in that instinct for preparedness also comes a practice in hesitation. And a softening of the give it a try muscles, the ones that teach you the most.

I’ve been really project-focused these days. I missed the spring cleaning and am now summer-organizing. I feel accustomed to living in my small space and clear about what objects I actually use, and which should make room. But some piles your eyes gloss over. Until finally after someone visits or the rest of the room is made up, they appear again like a trash heap. One such pile was my planters and soil

As a love to DIYer you can imagine woodworking has always been a one day hobby for me. I took wood shop in high school and loved it. But the space! I have no garage, no basement access even, so the power tools have been kept to a minimum. Instead I fantasized about making a custom storage space in a tiny unused alley between the kitchen hutch and the radiator wall. Looked at Japanese hand tools and work benches for months before realizing one day on a whim that the crate I use for my home improvement stuff, fits perfectly. I grabbed a second one at goodwill, and now my surplus gardening equipment is off the floor and has a home.

My next major home project is selling my surplus clothes and fixing/repairing the ones waiting in the closet. I love a project. Sanding and oiling the cutting boards, sharpening the kitchen knives, making onion and garlic powder from the dehydrated peels. But my need for preparedness tends to take away some joy. I didn’t make the dehydrated peels for a year because maybe I need another rack for that? Didn’t sand and oil the cutting boards because I use them too often to take them out of circulation for a day or two, and so there’s never been a good time. Plus maybe that’s a job for a power sander? Should I research?

Part of my recent personal growth spurt has come from realizing, not only am I a perfectionist in recovery, but the antidote is not just somehow “be nicer to yourself.” That is more the end goal. An adjective and not a verb, one attained by simply going forth. Making things imperfectly. I fixed my rain boots using some leftover embroidery floss before work one day. It looks a mess if you hold it up close, but who is going to inspect my rain boot and why? I’ve taken a similar route for all my clothes. If I fix them, and it is obvious, is that so shameful? More practice sharing my new found skill, doing things “good enough”. Does the shirt have a hole anymore? No? Great!

This type of project completing has become my real momentum in Philadelphia. Sometimes I feel stuck in those loops (especially with dating good lord). And I am continuously pushing myself to get out there, but one of the things that is most helping me get out the door, is the experience of all these little tasks. And finding my own little way. Not the best way, not a way I can really stand behind because I spent so much time researching and executing, but just the way I did it. Not the perfect date, or the best flirting, but just being out in the world and seeing if someone maybe is attracted to me, not for my performance, but because I’m there doing things and not at home, planning them.