The Urge to Purge

I start each day with an email from Martha Beck. She is one of my heroes, both as a life coach and as a woman. She imparts lots of wonderful nuggets to which I typically relate. I guess I should add that these aren’t exactly personal emails from Martha. Given the opportunity to actually meet I have no doubt that we would become fast friends, but so far we haven’t been able to connect. You know how it is. We both have pretty demanding schedules.

Anyway, one recent quote was:


"Living space is such a powerful metaphor because everything in it- every pot, plant, and pillow – reflects choices we make from among countless options, for countless reasons. The portrait that emerges is all the more accurate for having been created unconsciously." —Martha Beck, O At Home--Fall, 2004

I read it over several times. The word “portrait” particularly caught my eye. Does she mean portrait as in a depiction of who I am and what my life represents? I think maybe she does. I think I may be in serious trouble.

For instance I have only one plant in my house. That alone seems pathological now that I’ve actually taken a plant census, but the really scary thing is that the solitary specimen of vegetation looks like it belongs in a botanical ICU. Does that pitiful, spindly, greenish black sprig really accurately reflect my essence?

And then there are my closets. I don’t like chaos and disorder. In fact it drives me crazy. So why are all my closets so bloated with junk that closing the doors is like trying to squeeze the spring-coiled “snake” back into the faux can of peanuts? These cluttered closets should not paint a stroke on the portrait of me! Or at least not the me I want to be.

The result of all this reflection has created an urge to purge. As in throwing it all away and starting over. I guess it is not unlike my feelings of starting anew with this blog after all my work was launched into the great unknown of cyberspace. I have fantasies of gathering up every stitch of clothing and hauling it to Goodwill. I envision people carrying off my firmly used furniture from an oh-so-successful garage sale. I want a fresh start, open space, empty hangers and shelves. Oh, the glory of it!

Okay, so back to reality. I can’t throw away all my stuff. And, of course, even if I could, I wouldn’t. But, what else? Is it just about doing a little premature spring cleaning? Will that satisfy the urge to purge, or does it go beyond the surface? I do know one thing for certain; if serious cleaning isn’t going to help, I’m seriously not going to do it.

I think Martha owes me an answer on this. I’ll have my people get with her people to see if they can set up a little pow-wow. However, given that I don’t have any actual people, the prospects for a quick resolution might not be all that good.

Instead, I may have to depend on the fristers who already know they’re my fristers (I’m sure Martha would qualify if she only knew!) to offer suggestions. What do you say?

What’s in a name?

Deciding what to name my blog was a challenge. I want it to reflect who I am, but I also want it to invite others to identify with it. In trying to narrow down my choice, I realized that I have multiple interests. That’s a good thing, but it might result in a person being just the teensiest bit tangential. So, I tried to be logical and focused with my approach to the naming process. When that didn’t work, I let my instincts prevail. Here’s the story:

After our mother’s death, my sisters and I decided we would get together every year around Mom’s birthday to spend time together and to toast our awesome mother. There aren’t any real hard and fast guidelines for this, after all we’re nothing if not flexible, but we have managed to carve out time together every year. Last year I decided I wanted to write a little something to commemorate the day. While mulling it over in the days preceding, I heard the word frenemy (someone who pretends to be your friend, but really is your enemy) for the first time. It struck my ear and started rolling around my subconscious. Eventually it came to me that I would write a little essay about why it’s good to have frelatives (friends/relatives). At the end of the piece I noted that we three could take it a step beyond frelatives because we are fristers (friends/sisters). I made them each a little fristers day badge and they courageously wore them the entire day. I took that as further evidence that the embarrassment tolerance threshold is directly proportional to wisdom and maturity.

Anyway, that was that. We had a great day, toasted our mother, and had a lot of laughs. Fast forward a couple months. In the middle of the night I had a very clear thought. Now that is very unusual for me. Not having a clear thought as much as having a random one in the middle of the night. Well, maybe both. In any case, I really can’t say whether I was asleep or in the state between wakefulness and sleep, but it came to me that I should make fristers magnets and that I should remember the idea in the morning.

In the morning the memory was so clear and so odd that I felt I had to follow up on it, even though I have never, ever thought about making magnets of any sort. Hmmm, what to do? Rather than approach the project in a completely logical and focused manner with tons of research and a business plan, (this is me after all) I partnered with my niece the artist. We put our little heads together, decided our definition of frister is, “A loyal and loved friend/sister,” designed fristers magnets and cards, and called ourselves foreverfristers.

There you have it. I don’t know what the future holds for foreverfristers, but it is near and dear to my heart as are all my many fristers. Foreverfristers represents some of my strong emotional ties and relationships that are woven with friends and family. Gathering together the collective spirit of my fristers provides the power that comes from knowing my tribe. It helps me discern where I belong and with whom. I have come to understand that biology doesn’t always dictate the definition of family.

Thus, my blog became fristerspeak. I consider it an open space for my true voice . . . and yours. It is my deepest hope that fristerspeak will allow an ever-widening circle of us to gather as fristers to share, shelter, and support each other through trials and triumphs.

Let's get this party started

2010 – I like it. I like the roundness and evenness of it. I even like saying “twenty ten.” I take comfort in its tidiness and flow, but something about starting a new decade left me feeling a little bit at loose ends. Maybe the feeling had more to do with other things than it did with the beginning of a new decade, but, whatever, I felt the need to sort some things out, become more centered. Actually, I’ve felt that way pretty much my entire life, but for me that process often includes writing through things, fleshing them out. By getting things down I usually gain some insight.

Oh yeah, also we had computer issues which resulted in my losing every single manuscript I’ve ever written. There was that. . .

So it came to me, after stifling the urges at various moments to cry, vomit, or throw the freaking computer through the freaking window, that perhaps I needed to reframe a bit. Instead of looking at the erased files as a devastating loss, maybe I could view the incident as an opportunity for a fresh slate, a chance to begin anew. And, after all, what other choice did I really have? Thus, the idea to start a blog popped into my head.

Up to this point I haven’t been a big blogger, but I like the concept. I like to share thoughts and ideas. I like conversations with other women (and men) who offer insights and opinions that can enhance my perspective and expand my world view. I believe that we are all connected and that in our essence we are much more alike than we are different. That being said, I want to tap into that connection. It seems to me a blog is a great way to expand one’s reach without extensive travel or expending the kind of time and energy involved with huge amounts of individualized communications or correspondence. Think of this space as a sort of cyber coffee klatch. No, let’s make that a cyber happy hour. I think I like the feel of that a little better. There are no rules other than kindness prevails. I may blog twice a week or twice a month, but please know that your comments are wished for.

Whether you are seated in front of your computer with a cup of green tea or a glass of red wine, I hope you will take advantage of the opportunity to add to the conversation. As evidenced by the quote above, Emily Dickinson understood the importance of having a haven for free expression. It does our hearts good to pour words onto a page or into another’s ear. Please feel free to spoon in some of your own. Whether our current life conditions are sunny and fair or more like a tropical storm, our synergy can provide shelter enough for us all.

Stayed tuned for the next post to learn more about the name “fristerspeak”

Feel free to invite others who might enjoy the conversation