Pleasant places

That quote has been posted in the 2nd floor bathroom for more years than I remember.  Happily finding out how true those words are!

It's doubtful that anyone who has known me well for any great length of time would think of me as craving order, having a place for everything.  Certainly not my elementary school classmates, who may remember the times teachers would keep me in from recess to dig out my messy desk.  

No one, especially me, gave any thought to the possibility that everything was out of place because that was my normal - feeling, being out of place.

It took 41 years of realizing something was amiss, 28 years of building awareness, 16 years of AH HAs & 7 of increasingly focused action, but here I BE - in an interesting AND well-ordered room.  And it's been that way, consistently, for over six months.  

At this particular moment, there is a lot of stuff in here that doesn't belong, BUT it's clear those thing are in transition, in the sorting stage from being in the wrong place in the Front Room to finding their right place.  And it is clear that the room itself, this room we once called the Computer Studio & now The Retreat, IS inherently orderly, its space open & welcoming its temporary guests because it is secure in its own true state.

Open your space, open your life.  It took a) my desire & willingness to live a better something I did not know/experience -and- b) the great Marie Kondo to make the shift that got me to 1.5 orderly, interesting, use-filled rooms in Squirrel Haven.  

Confession - I did not clear & clean either The Retreat or The Front Room in Marie Kondo's trademark style, but I did clear out the books, all at once from throughout the house, which wasthe kick-start I needed.  And I will use her method to do the rest of the house.  As she says - take the relatively teensy sliver of your life to do one mega clearing & cleaning marathon that puts everything in its true place -or- spend ALL of your life dogged & bogged in an unending marathon of trying to keep up.  Marie Kondo - the human embodiment of "open your space, open your life."

Here's something I've learned - it didn't just take me all those years of first awakening to deeper awareness to increasingly focused action to get to here, sitting in a seriously cool-looking room with a life-thrumming vibe.  News flash - Marie Kondo's book, The Life-changing Act of Tidying Up, wasn't published until 2014.  All the other articles & books I'd read down the years didn't click.  Marie's did.  Right book at the right time - neither of those factors were in my control.  But one thing was.  Me.

For over at least a dozen years, "Open your space, open your life" has been posted next to the door in the 2nd floor bathroom.   I never stopped believing that better was possible -and- did not beat myself up for not being there yet. 

Here I be, on May 9, 2017, in a room that celebrates creativity within empowering boundaries, parameters.  Am waiting for my breakfast sweet potato to finish heating so I can top it with hummus & roasted Brussel sprouts, then move forward with my day.  Get in my first listen-of-the-day to Mel Robbins' 10 Rules of Success (with thanks to Evan Carmichael), wash my hair, get together with Margaret & Elaine to craft my Kronos/Kairos necklace while John takes Richard & Bronzi out on a ramble & to lunch, then onto spend time this afternoon with young friends, later transform last night's yum VEGAN dinner into a new incarnation, finish ithe day off with a batch-up cuppa with Karen.

The quote on our 2nd floor bathroom wall says "Open your space, open your life."  Looking over my day, looking around the room, looking at my life, am reminded of an even more spot-on quote, from the Bible  - My lines have fallen into pleasant places.

Indeed, they have!