The Cat in the Hat and the Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

“What would you do if your mother asked you?”

This is the last sentence of the Cat in the Hat. It’s asked after, as you likely recall, Cat through acts of entertainment, causes exponential messes in the children’s house that get cleaned up in the nick of time. Mother walks in and asks Conrad and Sally, “What did you do while I was out?” 

I’ve had a Cat in the Hat morning. When stowing plates and bowls in cupboards, followed by a spatula and peeler in a utensil drawer, I found I could barely pull the drawer wide enough to get out a knife, let alone get at whatever was blocking its opening. Piece-by-piece I remove enough to dislodge the offending item… my nemesis, the sharp, pointy and painful meat thermometer that stabs regularly, no matter how deep I place it in the drawer. 

Having had way too many discussions lately about the Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and rather than jam the damn thermometer in the back corner, I emptied the contents on two countertops and the kitchen table, and attempted to ask myself if any of the items bring me joy.  (It occurred to me at that moment that seeing all the stuff spewed everywhere is a stupid time to ask the question.)

I removed the five dividers and liner, washed them and reimagined the space. I moved one of the dividers containing openers and closers (rubber discs, can opener, cork screws, wine stops, etc.) to another drawer which had to be rearranged first, and before that, wiped clean. Skewers moved to a shelf high in a cupboard, risking oblivion, but better than discarding, I reasoned. The shelf below them held my mom’s box of recipes, which surfaced in a recent conversation about hot chicken salad with potato chips… a dish she served at a Coke-tail party before prom in 1969. Of course, I had to find the recipe. That led to photos, a text to my friend and eventually putting away the step stool in the laundry room.  

Damn, I’d been using the top of the dryer as an emergency holding area since the doorbell rung on Christmas Eve. It was piled with wrapping paper, a wood wine rack, a package to be shipped, dirty cloth napkins – the only items that should be there, an empty cat-toy box, a huge Tupperware full of bags of nuts and seeds, and bags, lots of bags… brown paper grocery bags, bags with nice handles and pretty sides, plastic bags thick enough for cat litter disposal, and bags to be recycled at the grocery store. Of course, it didn’t look as organized as I just described it; it looked more like the kitty’s litter box. 

“And this mess is so big 
And so deep and so tall, 
We cannot pick it up. 
There is no way at all!” 

I started a wash and cleared the top of the machines, which led me upstairs to the closet where my wrapping supplies are stored. I flipped. I jammed the tissue into the bag of rolls of happy paper, inside that disaster pit. I’d had enough. 

Returning to the kitchen, I easily reopened the now tidy kitchen drawer to grab the wine bottle-opener and discovered, in the last of the debris, an item offering true joy - a meat-thermometer sheath, free from Sur la Table, that forever renders my nemesis impotent. 

Conrad and Sally never answered mother.  Maybe neither would I. I didn’t accomplish one thing I had planned.

Grandma

Today, the wind and the windows hummed the deepest baseist chord

A guttural tone that mimicked my grandmother’s fret. 

“Lydia took a turn,” she’d say, never saying in what direction. 

“You’ll catch your death,” she’d scold, never explaining how. 

She baked the tiniest of muffins from the tiniest box and tell me not to eat them. 

I’d swat her hand when she’d help me with my dress for church.

“No man will ever have you,” she’d warn, without a trace of doubt. 

“Your independence will be the death,” she’d say, without any clarification. 

A gust, the rain, more leaves on the ground than on the trees. 

How to Carry Wet Paintings: A $5.49 DIY panel carrier

Here is a quick and cheap idea for a panel carrier. 

Plein air painting requires a lot of equipment for just the basics, easel, tripod, an umbrella depending on sun and weather, a medium like pastels, oil or watercolor, and their surfaces to paint on, paper or canvas and linen panels (and all the other options), and brushes. If you are a plein air artist, you know there's more too... rags or paper towels, view finder, mall stick, tools, water, and so on. This post is focused narrowly - for oil painters to suggest a cheap, simple way to transport in a dry panel and to transport out a wet one. 

The premise is simple: Create a light, cheap device that holds two panels of the same size 9x12", 12x16", whatever, to protect them from being dirtied or scratched, and to protect the artist or the artist's belongings from getting more paint on them. (Who among us hasn't found unplanned paint on a light switch, car door handle, and a favorite shirt?) I've described a simple solution below. 

You will need 2 frames, glue and a rubber band. I had the glue and rubber band on hand. 

Yesterday, I decided to paint plein air on a 5X7" canvas panel but didn't have a carrier for it. Typically, I use an 8x10" 9x12" or 11x14" for painting outdoors. For those I have beautiful panel carriers made by a carpenter-friend. To buy them online, the cost is around $20 plus shipping, but mine are works of art themselves, made from scraps of specialty wood. 

To get by yesterday, I took a C-clamp and wax paper, and counted on the idea that once in the car, it would get minimal jostling. The wax paper would keep debris and dust from landing on it and the clamp provides a handle. Anyway, I figured I could fix any smudging.  But then, in Chicago, there are wide and fast corners...

On the way home from the paint out, the wet painting slid around in the trunk of my car. It really didn't hurt anything, but I can't depend on my luck holding. Turns out, I liked the idea of painting small. I painted looser, faster and worked out the values. If I had a bit more time, I could have completed a second painting.  So, I stopped at Michaels and found a package of two wood frames for $10. Immediately, I saw the potential and found a 50% discount coupon on line that to use at the cashier. This project cost $5.49, with sales tax, sans the glue and rubber band. 

At home I removed the cellophane from the frames and removed the glass and paper.  

Using my trusty glue gun, I smeared glue on the front sides of both frames and placed them together. Later, I laid another bead of glue around the edges as an even seal. Someone asked, why do you need glue, not simply the rubber band to hold them together. Because, you don't want them to slide. If you don't have a glue gun, use Elmers, chunks of double sided tape or Velcro, though none of those sound as easy to me.

I was able to place my wet panel from earlier in the day facing the center. I could add a second one on the other side, also facing the center, because the depth of the frames will keep them separated. 

While I used the clips that were included in the frame, I am sure with use they will break off. I added a rubber band for extra security.  Next time I go out, I will insert a blank canvas surface on each side and complete one or two as time and energy allow. Or, if you only have on canvas of the size, you could keep and use, the backing that has the hangers on it.... come to think of it, you end up with a nice frame for showing it at a critique or until you use your carrier again. 

                                      

This idea is not my own. I copied it from the very talented, clever and thrifty Wisconsin artist, Dana M. Johnson, who painted plein air with the Plein Air Painters Chicago a couple summers back. As I remember the story, she and her dad created from frames found at a thrift store. I've looked there and garage sales, but never found two identical frames that would work. With the coupon, the price is about as good as it gets and a quarter of what you'd pay for a manufactured panel carrier. Michaels has many sizes of these packages of frames. There's no reason you couldn't make one for each size you use.  

For more on traveling and transporting plein air equipment, check out this post: How to Pack for Plein Air Painting Travel.

Grandpa Still Snowboards - How Staying Still Doesn't Allow Us to Grow

What’s the name of that restaurant? You know, the one on Irving, no, on Cicero, no, on Milwaukee? You know… the one with Baked Alaska*, it’s on the tip of my tongue…

That searching for a word, it’s called anomia. I’ve had run ins with it for a long time. I admit, a catalyst for retiring at the first chance came after sitting in meetings and feeling stupid. The times I couldn’t find the memory of the results of a previous day’s meeting, or I’d look at someone and couldn’t come up with their name, let alone their kid’s names. When anomia strikes, it erodes my self-confidence and immediately makes me think I will be in “the home” before the bananas turn yellow. 

Not so fast…. In the last few days, after truly launching my child across the country into his life after graduate work, after a year of retirement, after four years of learning to paint, and two and a half years of living on my retirement income, I’ve realized I put off focusing on my own growth and development in this next part of life. It doesn’t mean I haven’t been talking about it with whomever will listen… friends, neighbors, the Whole Foods cashier.  I typically spew the first part of my exploration like the gush from a fire hose, as the unsuspecting ask, how are you? Fine. I’m trying to figure out my life. I am done with health care, could use some money, I want a life of meaning, and painting and people, should I move? And on and on. 

It’s Wednesday and I have a wide open day, ripe for me to scratch off the items on my to-do list that extends to a second side of paper. I look forward to my still life painting class at the other end of my day that is part of my self directed curriculum on becoming an artist.  

Development as an artist is one of two successful elements I can claim on my plan to retire with intention. The other, which I may delve into more at another time, was living on my retirement income for more than a year prior to declaring a retirement date. Once I felt confident that I could exist, I set a date first in my own mind, and eventually with my employer. 

Which brings me back to today. I’m eyeing tchotchkes on a shelf I want to clear… for good, while packing my back pack for today’s attempt at a good submission for a plein air competition in Schaumburg.  I’m feeling pressure to get on with my life in the near term, and make sense of the rest of my days. Stat! Gratefully, I woke up to an email from one of my friends who’d sent a link to a TedTalk that she thought spoke to my woman’s “search for meaning.” It does. It’s by Bill Thomas, MD. a Harvard trained geriatrician who is reframing aging. I listened to the Ted Talk and intrigued, found another, more meaty presentation that got me to breathing a little easier. 

One of his messages is about anomia – the word finding issue I mentioned above.  When a young person stores a word in their brain, they don’t know a lot, and there is a lot of room to store words in their brain. Their filing system is simple, a single filing cabinet. If you live long, you have many filing cabinets, with many words, filed in different locations for different reasons. When you can’t think of a name of a restaurant or a person, it’s actually a consequence of how much you’ve stored.  

Research has shown that when people are asked to recall, young people remember the details, elders remember the gist. Elders have the store of knowledge to connect many aspects and pull on the architecture of the brain to activate and retrieve from different parts. Our brains have the power to provide a broader view of the issue. In other words, we elders have the gist of the story. In that sense, Bill Thomas jokes, “young people are neurologically disabled.”  

Yet, as a society, we don’t think in these terms. I smiled at Doctor Thomas’ concept of how we ineffectively cast “still” in our language. My Aunt Edith at 84 still drives. Grandpa still snowboards at 91… barefoot.  We are measured and somewhat revered by how we STAY the same. If we don’t stay still, we are disappeared.

Remember taking a child to the pediatrician and receiving a report in weight and height, or later talking with the child’s teachers about their maturity?   We have metrics to show change and growth from childhood, through adolescents and into adulthood. We recognize a fourteen year old who hasn’t dropped their blanky is acting inappropriately for their age. A twentysix year old still living at home…. (oops, scratch that example.)  Even with social trends like kids living longer at home, we recognize the end of the younger developmental phase, yet we don’t have a positive, recognizable phase for after adulthood. We are destined to stay still or disappear. It's a limbo, a time before death. It's not a recognized time for its own growth. For the most part, we measure peoples in terms of loss of adulthood. Dr. Thomas offers the name to this time as elderhood. And, he doesn't see it as staying still. 

I can relate… I am becoming an elder. I am done with certain things in adulthood. I am done being a slave to a work schedule. I am done with progress reviews that indicated my worth to an employer. I am done with conformity to fashion, cosmetics and other things that dictate how I must present myself. I really don’t understand cosmetic surgery, except for those days when I feel myself disappearing. I am done with raising a child… we now can have adult conversations. And, I am ready to grow. 

I am ready to reframe how I think about this time in my life. I want to create. I want to create meaning. I want to  be a successful painter- it burns me when someone asks, is this a hobby? Not really, I responded on Monday. The guys who asked followed up with, so you're making a living? Not a big one, I told him. But I am, not in money maybe, but this is big living for me.  

This morning, I am grateful to my friend who sent the link to Doctor Thomas’ talk (I encourage you to watch it) and I am grateful to him for helping me reframe my sense of self and my sense of meaning. 

Let the gist begin! 

*Community Tavern 

Doctor Marie Curie, Women of Substance and Poetry

Here is a video of amazing poems about science and the environment being read by poets and artists. It's from Maria Popova who curates the inspirational and thought provoking Brain Pickings and the Academy of American Poetswho bring us Poem a Day. Turn it on while you cook or spring clean. I found it uplifting and hopeful. "Not only does poetry matter, poetry is matter." 

One other thought... The poem about Marie Curie takes me back to grade school, to an assignment to write a report on a scientist. I landed on Madame Curie ---->. I'm sure I did the least to get it done as I often did in school, but it's stayed with me. It gave me a view of an accomplished woman in a world dominated by men. I remember my mother helping me with this particular assignment. She may have been the one who pointed me toward Madame Curie. She drove me to the library on the Hill to do the research and made editing suggestions sitting with me at the kitchen table. All of this was highly unusual behavior for her, as she was not the role model for the helicopter parent I became. Madame Curie must have been my mom's hero, this assignment engaged her. I think too, that it was her mild way of pointing me to becoming a woman of substance. My mother was a woman of substance who, though graduating from college at 20 years old, gave up her career at twenty-seven to marry and live a household life.

Madame Curie, who should be known as Doctor Curie, (another subtle way to suppress her magnitude?) was not only the first woman to win a Nobel prize; she won two Nobel Prizes. In school we learned about martyrs, who died for their faith. Curie died a martyr too, for her science from radiation poisoning... equally as inspiring. This assignment was one of my defining moments. It allowed me to see women in a different way, and, with my mother stepping beyond her usual, allowed me to see the possibilities for me. 

I'm hugely grateful for Brain Pickings and poetry for doing what poetry does.