Spring is coming...well, maybe. I'm doubtful. It's March 28th, it's snowing outside and it feels like we will be in winter forever, Jon Snow. Dramatic but not true, spring will get here eventually. With it will come the annual ritual of spring cleaning. Spring cleaning is called spring cleaning for a reason. Spring is the season of re-birth, re-newal and growth. All types of life that have been covered in snow, dormant or have been still during winter start to wake up with the cycle of the seasons. Plants, trees, birds, other creatures, people; we wake up and start anew. We head outdoors to clean our gardens. We pick stuff up, we rake and cut back plants for optimal growth. I like to apply those actions indoors. That's spring cleaning. We pick up and prune our crap so we can grow optimally.
Each spring, I pick a few areas in the house that haven't been organized or cleaned out in awhile. I tend to go on a two-year cycle which means that I haven't gotten to the office space since 2013. The function of the space has changed drastically with a high-schooler. This space used to be my personal domain for design, business, paper object creation and drawing. Now I share it with text books, stacks of essays and other teenager-y objects including an actual teenager. The thing that doesn't really change is my pin board. It gets updated but many things remain from year-to-year. I have had a pin board from the day I went to Pratt. It acts as inspiration, a reminder board, a to-do list and memory wall, at the very least.
Yesterday, the faboo hubby and I decided that my new skeleton, MORT!, needed a home other than the living room (though he makes an excellent conversation piece). In order to get him into the office, a piece of furniture and all it's contents needed to be removed or re-organized into a single piece of furniture and various shelves and bins. I started at 9:30am...fast forward six hours and two contractor bags later...the space was spanky, re-organized and clean. There are even pictures on Facebook to prove it.
Best part was that I took an hour to re-organize and get nostalgic about my pin board. It's kind of like an upside-down mullet. All business below and a party up top. These are my two favorite "quadrants".
On the left is the DevonArt/Button/Bill the Cat quadrant and to it's right, the 'always-keep-it-in-mind' department.
Devon has made me some amazing and adorable things over the years and I've kept and cherished many of them. But the above are some of my favorites because they were surprises. The corrugated card is a Yu-Gi-Oh inspired Valentine's Day card, the "effect" is Love (could you just die?); the 'Nananananana' was secretly stuck on my computer screen one evening and I saw it only after I had dropped him at the bus; I found the "Cat Butt" note in a pocket of my kindle cover while on vacation (it was inspired by a previous and random discussion about how our cat's butts looked like asterisks or dots). Whenever I see them, I smile at both the memory of their discovery and the thought that went into them.
The "always-keep-it-in-mind" quadrant contains simple concepts or thoughts that sometimes seem impossible to remember or practice. The Masahide poem reminds me to be grateful even in the face of great adversity; Oscar Wilde reminds me to always keep a sense of humor; Emerson says to scatter joy...yes! I think if we do, joy will be ours; and "standing at opposite poles, equal partners in a mystery", one of Devon's babysitters doodled this, I asked if I could keep it. It spoke directly to how I see Steve's and my partnership in marriage, life and parenting. And lastly, yes, I am totally bacon-powered.
Cleaning the office allowed me to revisit why these tokens mean so much to me. Love. Compassion. Thought. Laughter. History. Gratitude. Laughter. and Love. and Love. and maybe bacon.
Create your own pin board. Relish it.