Just Walk In
When it comes to domestic science–or arts, depending on how you like to regard these matters of home–my greatest achievement might be the reasonable management of expectations. If you work a challenging career while managing your home on your own, hang out with your family and friends, and stop even occasionally to breathe and enjoy life, well, let’s face it. If you want to sleep at all, something has to give.
Too tired for the dinner dishes? Leave them until morning, perched in the sink, and no one’s life will be diminished therein. Dust on the dining table? Cover it with a placemat, top off the red wine and cheese board, and carry on. Unidentifiable grunge in the back corners of the fridge vegetable drawer? If it’s not sprouting anything yet, it’s no sweat. It Can Wait.
The It Can Wait philosophy for home management may be tested, however, when functionality begins to diminish, or comes to a full stop. Consider for a moment my cherished walk-in closet. It remains one of the most life-changing upgrades I experienced when choosing a new home three years ago after a decade in an 80s-vintage condo. The condo storage space was clearly intended for minimalists with one pair of jeans and two towels to their names. My new walk-in, measured out for two in a home presently occupied by one, is large enough to double as a sleeping nook for a visiting grandchild. And when it comes to maintaining organization in this spacious temple to clothes, shoes, purses, jewelry, hats, and… other stuff, my standards are, as always, reasonable to low-end.
I just want to be able to, you know, walk in.
Sadly, It Can Wait collided head-on into Safety First earlier this week. Reaching for a dress for a work meeting while snaking around the various obstacles long ignored on the closet floor, I skidded on something and fell forward, catching myself on a hanger rack just in time to avoid a nose-dive into the depths of a peachy slip and fall case, featuring me as both plaintiff and defendant.
The Queen of It Can Wait values domestic flexibility but places a higher premium on life and limb. So, first thing Saturday morning I set aside plans for a couple of errands. It was (long past) time to bravely face the inner sanctum and, in the name of all that’s holy, clear out enough floor space to re-establish safe entry and exit.
How did it get so far gone? Evidence abounds while excuses are absent. Here blocking the dress rack is my new suitcase, unpacked but never stowed away after a fabulous trip two full months ago that was immediately followed by a blitzkrieg work schedule. The suitcase totters, unbalanced by a pair of shoes stuck beneath it that were set out for donation but never got there. The cause of my slip? A slick, plastic, folding suitbag, fallen from a shelf above who knows when. In my (wobbly) defense, the bag is the same color as the carpet.
The upside, of course, is the litany of discoveries emerging from the excavation of the floor. Look! There are my favorite amber beads, presumed lost forever. In reality, they apparently fell from the necklace rack into an overturned shoe. Even better, the floor was festooned with a wealth of fallen hangers, just when I had cited the absence of available hangers as motivation to postpone doing the laundry. And there, thank the LORD, FINALLY, is the box to store the hat I wore at my little, impromptu Derby party. In 2023.
Even when It Can Wait rules the day, I still keep an eye open for any chance to funnel excess down to the next generations. A few days before the Slipped But Got Lucky drama, I invited my daughter back into the depths of the walk-in to help me select a necklace for an upcoming important event. Sorry about the mess, I babbled, suddenly embarrassed for the clutter to be seen by anyone else, though she is never judgmental about such things. Do you see anything in here that you want? I added hopefully, trying to distract. No dice that time, but occasionally that tactic is fruitful.
If I actually noted the minimal time it finally took to restore the closet floor for unfettered passage, the self-flagellation might endure forever. Instead, when I finished it felt great to pace the floor briskly, one end of the walk-in to the other, three times in succession, like a deep thinker sorting through a great idea. Say, for example, an idea like progressing from clearing the floor to sorting through the shelves and hanging racks for more stuff to clear out. At some future time, another day. After all, It Can Wait has a habit of restoring control pretty promptly.
