Lofty Goals
a gift I gathered
A few things that all connect in the end...*Not long after we moved into this house, our new neighbor and long-time friend, Tom, told me what some of the trees were in my new yard. The one on the east is a tulip tree. But it's so tall, and the tulip-like blossom blends so well with the leaves that I never actually noticed them until this year. For this picture, I held the camera above my head with my arms stretched all the way up, and this was the tulip closest to the ground. It was nice to finally see this tree though - after nine years, I finally saw it. It was the gift I gathered that day.
Second, there's a F.R.I.E.ND.S moment I love in which all the girls are wearing wedding dresses, drinking beer and eating popcorn, and Monica says, "I wish there was a job where I could wear this all day." I have my own new dream job that's similar, and it also involves a beautiful dress.
I drive by a bridal shop in my town - I've mentioned it before - that has at least six gorgeous dresses in the window display all the time, and they change pretty often. Lately, I've waited for a Kate Middleton-esque bridal gown to appear, but it hasn't happened. I feel so happy every time I drive by this window. Ahhh, pretty dresses. I want to stand outside this window and eat breakfast, I recently tweeted. And I want to have a job in which I wear its window displays. Yes I do.
And while I'm wearing the beautiful dresses, I want to gather. I want to read books and magazines and blogs and just gather inspiration like I'm picking a bouquet. And it's not like I would just be consuming. I'd turn the inspiration into inspirational blogs of course and into novels. I would. That would be the goal. Gather lots, create a little, every day. All while wearing designer gowns from Teresa's Bridal Boutique. I love this plan.
Third, I have an idea for you, to go with all the decluttering I know I've inspired you to do. This is, of course, for us declutter-ers who hold a bit more need for the sentimental than true minimalists.
You start with a binder - at least one and one-half inches probably - and you fill it with clear sleeves. Then you get a wedding invitation in the mail that you adore. It sits on your table for a week or so until you clean that off, then it sits on a shelf or the top of the fridge - oh dear - or between the magazines on the end table. When you reach that end table during the decluttering process, you won't know what to do with that pretty little invitation - or that birthday card that still makes you smile when you see it or the first award your child got at school or the doodle your husband made at work when he was still just your boyfriend and he was thinking of you. You'll know you might as well throw it away, but you can't help but wonder if it might be sheer delight to look at it again one day in the future when you've forgotten all about it. That's when you remember the binder. You tuck the invitation into a clear, plastic sleeve. Now it's no longer clutter but a page in the book that tells the story of your life - not the epic parts maybe, but the little parts that equal the whole.
So you buy your binder, and I'm going to get mine out and add to it some of the snippets currently on shelves and such (though not the fridge top, because that's a place I've already tackled!). And now, we're all gatherers.
I love this job.