order

A writer friend of mine used to tie herself to her chair to make herself write. I can certainly relate to that impulse because as I sit here trying to start writing I’m staring at the untidy piles on my desk and dreaming of the fun I will have organizing them into neater piles. A blizzard of little pieces of paper dusts my desk, each one an important note. I know precisely where each piece of information is and if anything is moved chaos will ensue. This storage style seems to be creeping from the desk to invade the entire room and I must walk gingerly around the perimeter so I don’t disturb sorted piles of books, carefully ordered file boxes, various pieces of equipment in need of maintenance. And dust. Dust has settled over everything. I can’t dust the room because that might disturb the fragile organization I believe exists. But my belief, I believe, is illusory. Beneath the settled snow of paper might be a once-searchable small stack of once-useful information. But as the room shrinks with each new layer of precariously ordered stuff, I fear order has flown.