Ms Parker made me do it
The magic of tidying up — no, she doesn’t hate books!
I have had so many half formed blogs floating around in my head for the past few weeks — mainly ADHD related, but obviously as always happens, what wants to be written yells louder and drowns out the other plans.
So today, no depression talk (yes, I let out that sigh of relief too), no ADHD talk. Today, we talk about Joyce.
If you have managed not to hear/see/read anything about Marie Kondo’s Magic of Tidying Up then what rock have you been hiding under? In 2015 (seriously, it was that long ago?!?!) I was telling you all about the crazy Japanese lady. Re-reading that post was emotional — I’ll get to that later. The crazy Japanese lady was Marie Kondo, and her love of folding things and caring about the feelings of socks made utterly insane sense.
Well, 3 years down the line, I still fold things standing up, but the rest has kinda fallen apart. My poor socks are potatoes more often than not, and Strawb has stressed out tights. Anyway. Cut to now and there are people all over Facebook, Twitter, Medium, Netflix discussing how this teeny tiny little dot of a woman does things.
I sat down to watch some episodes. I love her. She brings joy. Seeing her jump with delight at a cat she didn’t expect to see, or laughing as she realised what boobie meant. She is just lovely. But a few episodes in, and although these people’s lives are clearly being changed, her message doesn’t come through properly.
I see this meme everywhere in some form or another, and I just want to bash my head on my keyboard and yell “NO!!”. I have had to back away from many conversations because I can feel my passionate defence getting to crazy levels.
This tiny little ball of joy would never want you to burn all your books until you only have 30. She doesn’t want you to just keep happy books. She doesn’t want you to keep no sentimental tat. She wants you to be connected to everything.
“Joy” is the wrong word to my mind. I suspect it was the closest she could get in translation years back and now she is stuck with it. It isn’t about what brings you “joy”, it is what makes you feel.
When I got to the book stage, I looked round thinking “But my bookshelves are me. I love all of my books!!!” But I had been through my clothes, and items I assumed I loved because I had had them for years had gone into the “no joy” pile. I grasped what that touching things and feeling the “spark” meant for me. Not a spark of joy, but a jolt of connection. So I piled my books onto my table, and I began…
The same thing happened. Books that I had had since my childhood — some sparked, some felt like bound, dead paper. Books that I had had unread for a decade — some were never going to be touched, some burned into me with a connection I didn’t know was there. It wasn’t about content. It wasn’t about covers. It was connection.
Yes, I know I sound like a crazy woman. Maybe I am. But when it comes down to it, I believe, and have always believe, that everyone and everything in our world is all part of the same energy. Maybe that spark is the like energy meeting like energy? Who knows. All I know is that I want people to get what she is saying. She isn’t Aggie and Whatsherface who used to make you empty your home of crap, she isn’t that House Doctor woman who wants you to make your home anonymous before you move house.
She wants life. She wants magic. She wants YOU.
I don’t know this woman. It is highly unlikely that I will ever meet her. But seeing people confusing her meaning so much weirdly hurts.
Her concept in itself is Joyce, and Joyce should be living in all of us.
You know Joyce… Joyce Parker, as you should only live with things which are joy sparkers.
On the whole “previously on” emotions — “If someone said three years from now…” when I was writing that I was attending funerals wondering if the next one would be Furball’s. I was wondering what would happen in our lives, how we would make it through the next month, let alone where we would be in three years.
So much has changed. So many more funerals, and so much more loss. But also, so much unexpected good. The woman folding socks in 2015 would have never dreamt she would be doing a degree. Never dreamt that she would be in a placement actually writing for a living. Most of all, she never dreamt that she would have car journeys and meals out with her partner husband. She never believed that she would see the man she fell in love with shining through again.
My house may not be what I envisioned when I opened a book and was told to visualise the life I wanted, but you know what…. the life I visualised is fighting its way through.
Originally published at flamesquirrels.wordpress.com on January 18, 2019.
