Organizing

Organizing at its Finest – Photo: L. Weikel

Today was a day. The chilly and wet weather outside made it exponentially harder to avoid dealing with the task that’s been whining at me for months. The boxes of papers and files I’ve accumulated – no, curated – over the years have quietly begun organizing themselves into a rowdy group of troublemakers.

Yes, it’s grown harder and harder to ignore the piles and stacks of boxes that basically document our lives. So Karl and I both threw ourselves into the task today. Forty years of marriage wizened us to intuitively retreat to opposite ends of the house to tackle our respective monsters. This exercise, not for the faint of heart, could easily devolve into chaos if we shared too much of our respective struggles.

Forewarned

It could be said that my Medicine Card* pick on the day warned me how to proceed. I chose Snake reversed/Lynx. Snake is transmutation, so there’s the metaphor of getting bitten by snakes but being able to transmute the poison so it doesn’t kill you. There’s also, of course, the shedding of a snake’s skin – shedding one’s outer identity and becoming someone or something new. But the key word today, for me, was shedding. Getting rid of the baggage. Perhaps sloughing off the old beliefs of who and what I am or need to be in order to fit into this world. However I wanted to interpret Snake showing up for me today, I still needed to remember that it was upside down: so it was likely I might try to avoid the shedding of my skin – but ultimately it would prove futile.

And with Lynx underneath? Perhaps I was to keep my mouth shut about my process of shedding my skin – or maybe, in shedding my skin, I would be introduced to a whole new brotherhood or sisterhood as a result.

Old Habits

I think becoming a lawyer indulged (or perhaps even worsened) my persnickety compulsion to keep very precise records. Early on in my career, I learned that having everything I might need stored in a well-marked place where I could easily put my hands on it made my life exponentially easier. Thus, I have a file folder for everything. And I have those file folders organized and neatly stored in boxes that hold hanging folders.

The problem started getting out of hand when we got rid of our filing cabinets. Admittedly, they were dinosaurs – bulky, outdated, rusting – but they kept it all ‘under one roof.’ That was helpful. So when we decided to clear them out, I was left with plastic filing boxes here, there, and everywhere.

Cue the Sadness and Discomfort

And then I started going through the boxes.

Yup. I know why I’ve been avoiding this task. And I’m also recognizing the sad synchrony of this being Memorial Day (weekend) and how I feel going through my myriad folders of paper today.

I may not be remembering and honoring the service of military people by wading through these folders, but I am engaging in honoring memories.

And wading is the appropriate term. Wow. This is hard. And it’s bringing up lots of feelings.

Perhaps I’ll have more to share tomorrow. In the meantime – I wish we could all feel more confident that the sacrifices made by those who served in the armed forces to protect democracy and our republic were being honored and respected by those in power today.

Things feel disturbingly precarious this Memorial Day.