When it comes to decluttering the written word, nobody mastered it better than Ogden Nash. Consider the conciseness of his shortest ode:

Poem on the Antiquity of Fleas

Adam
   Had‘em.

Succinct and uncluttered. Streamlined and pristine. Hopefully excluding the fleas, the style of that little masterpiece exactly describes the contents of every one of my closets, cupboards, shelves and drawers. In my dreams, that is.

Son Matthew and I are getting ready to move all our belongings from 4,000 sq.ft. to 1500 sq.ft. It’s called downsizing. Also known as decluttering hell.

Where did all this stuff come from??? Considering that I came into this world uncluttered and bare naked, how did I happen to acquire all these “collections”.

My hero, Jack Reacher of the Lee Child novels, survives nicely with only the clothes on his back, his ATM card, and a folding toothbrush. With Jack as my model, why did I think I needed 11 sweaters which I haven’t worn since I discovered comfy fat-concealing sweatshirts (machine-washable in hot water), 6 pairs of shoes which don’t fit and may have been in style during World War II, and several Dress-for-Success suits to show off my dynamic executive style while scrubbing out the toilets.

I have no idea what else I’ll find in the closets, but if you don’t hear from me in the near future, send out a search party. I’ll be in there somewhere under the mountain of old clothes, laundry, hangars, hat boxes, garment bags full of unpleasant surprises, and other treasures designated for the dump. And don’t let them haul me away with it.

It’s best not to mention the rest of the house: the bulging kitchen cupboards, the garage, the garden shed, the shelves of family photo albums, the cupboard of sewing supplies, baskets and boxes of yarn skeins, stacks of National Geographic magazines, and, of course, my fabric collection. All home sewers have a fabric stash and I am no exception. We really enjoy buying fabric for all those glorious creations we’re going to create some day. The challenge among home seamstresses is that “She who dies with the most fabric, wins.”

But I am not cowed, no, indeed. I have decided to view the task ahead as an opportunity! I am going to minimalize! I’m going to be decisive. I intend to shed our home of its useless objects, its extraneous and space-hogging clutter. Every crook and cranny will be streamlined, impeccable in its purity and simplicity. I’m going to get started on it any day now. Maybe next week.

But first, I better sit down and have some coffee. And study the situation.

After several minutes of intense systems analysis, I have decided there are really only four ways to deal with this challenge.

A. DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE CLUTTER.
Get rid of the junk, judiciously, of course. Yes, dump the 2 year “archive” of old AARP magazines, that raggedy collection of untried recipes, and those tatty old underpants, but it’s okay to hang on to your birth certificate, your Last Will and Testament, and your uncashed Costco Rewards Certificate. Or . . .

B. DON’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT THE CLUTTER.
Save it. After you’re gone, maybe your loved ones can address it. Think of the awe and respect you’ll receive posthumously for “Aww. Look at this! Look how Grandma didn’t have room to save all the worn-out sweatshirts her daughter Susy hand painted for Grandpa, so she just cut out and saved the fronts!” And their cleanup efforts may be well-motivated by their lack of desire to see their mother’s photo exposed in the Seattle Times featuring her out-of-control hoarding disorder. Or . . .

C. TREASURE THE CLUTTER INSTEAD OF DEMEANING IT. Think about it. One man’s garbage is another man’s treasure. Be proud of your “collectibles”.

Apparently to some, clutter is actually quite desirable. Take this little guy, for instance. He’s a Neotoma cinerea, but he’s better known as a bushy-tailed packrat. His respectable full-time job is collecting clutter. And since he’s a petty thief, some of it may belong to you, especially if it’s something shiny like coins, spoons, your heirloom watch, or your car keys. Also included in his collecting will be nuts, acorns, plant matter, other animals’ feces, small bones, and other delicious treasures. Once he gets home with his current haul, he proudly piles it up on a huge mound of clutter called a “midden”, and then he carefully preserves it for future generations by urinating all over it.

But here’s the lesson to be learned from the packrat. To zoologists and paleobotanists, our little visitor is a big hero! Thanks to all that urine, the middens are considered reliable “time capsules” of natural life of fauna and vegetation, centuries and millennia after they were constructed. So there’s that! Or . . .

D. MODEL THE CLUTTER BEHAVIOR OF VERY SMART PEOPLE.
The next time you pick up your iPhone, you need to consider its birthplace. In Steve Job’s office. Which is pictured below.

And here’s Albert Einstein’s office where, amidst the confusion, his equation E = mc² saw the light of day:

The office below is where Sigmund Freud messed with the ids and egos of his patients:

Ernest Hemingway was famous for his uncluttered, straightforward prose, but here he is busy at work in his office. His clutter was neatly organized but there was so much of it crowding his workspace that that might explain why he did most of his writing standing up at his typewriter.

Now consider what we’ve just learned. We should emulate smart people. Some of them are very messy. Ergo, if we want to be smart . . . Are you getting this? Is it giving you that “spark of joy?”

As for me, I’m still pondering which solution to follow, even though I know full well what I have to do. There’s no way to cram 4,000 sq. ft. of stuff Into 1,500 sq. ft. unless we don’t move along with it. Or unless I learn the Herculean compression hack my niece Nay-Ray knows. One time she, her husband, and four small children traveled to Sun City West to visit her parents. And they brought with them one suitcase. As far as I know, they weren’t practicing nudism.

But now, I guess it’s time to face my demons, and face the task ahead, to rise to the challenge! And I’m going to very soon. Probably tomorrow. Or the day after.

I’m trying to compose a little poem in order to buy a little more time. I’m still working on it – I want it to be Hemingway-like in its uncluttered brevity. It’s dedicated to my family who may be wondering about the delay.

Ode to Procrastination

Utter clutter
   Flusters Muther.