sweeping out the bird poop

Rather by accident last weekend, we began small but significant upgrades in our home. Somewhere around 21 years ago, shortly after we moved into and furnished this small 3-bedroom town house with our 18-month old son, we began collecting stuff and stopped any conscious or creative nest building, focusing on raising the kids, working the jobs, tracking the craziness in the wider world, and maintaining a modicum of personal sanity. Household renovation was low down on the priority pole, and changes were mostly made to accomodate the kids and their evolving needs. This led to exponential accumulation of items both precious and junk, to decreasing personal space for the parents, and to the primacy of function over aesthetics. As the young child of a neighbor once asked me, "Kalei's Mom? why is Kalei's house always so messy?" As it turned out, the family of this bright but impertinent child had bigger fish to fry, namely a father who used and dealt ice. Even so, I'd be dishonest if I said the words did not find a soft spot somewhere in my psyche (gee, maybe if I smoked crytal meth, I too could have a neat house).

Anyway, it seems that over the years, anytime Mark and I talk about ideas for better use of our limited space, we would run up against our differing ways of going about things, and I would get overwhelmed by the magnitude of it. This time, after kicking a few ideas around, I proposed a first step that I felt motivated to attempt, which Mark immediately deemed "brilliant". Bolstered by such positive reinforcement, we proceeded for the first time, working as a team. Much dust was raised and removed, a goodly number of books culled, an old desk removed, workspaces consolidated, and more light and white space created. Art pieces were dusted off and places found for some, so the "livingroom" became a place for the eyes to rest upon lovely, interesting and/ or meaningful artwork.

I was reminded of the the suddern desire to re-create the home that happens during pregnancy, often during the energetic 2nd trimester, and remarked to Mark that perhpas we were expeiencing empty nester nesting behavior. "Or, more like sweeping out the bird poop" said he. Whatever we name it, I'd call it satisfying, nay, liberating, to find we are capable of accomplishing a few small steps along the Martha Stewart continuum.