I like drawers in my bedroom, kitchen, office, laundry, sewing room, to be neat. To me, “neat and clean” is a great enhancement to my sense of well-being. This feeling is especially present every other Friday following the departure of my cleaning woman, Bronya Leniart, after her 8-hour stint. She doesn’t stint! She’s Polish, speaks but a little English and is 69. She does floors the old-fashioned way, on her knees. We have to hide the snow shovel in winter and the rake in autumn to keep her cleaning restricted to indoors.
My compulsion about neat drawers is probably a reaction to my mother’s methods. Her drawers were always in disarray. However, she always knew where everything was. Maybe her mind was actually like a filing cabinet. No, she probably knew where everything was because she was a visualizer. She could lay her hands on what she was looking for because she could visualize it in the mess.
My father is also a neat nut. He cannot abide disorder in any realm – his office or his kitchen. In his life as a butcher and meat-packer, he worked with one hand and cleaned up with the other. Or he called for a clean-up crew now!
To make drawers neat I fill those that hold lots of little things with dividers: small baskets, flat boxes that once held note cards, or store-bought drawer dividers of various sizes.
I could say, presumptiously, that neat and orderly drawers are evidence of a neat and orderly mind. But my three kids have neat and orderly minds but only two of them keep their belongings in an orderly way. Seymour’s mind is very orderly, but whereas he keeps his clothing neat, his office is a monumental clutter.
Neat and orderly is really a personal method of operating. I need to be organized in order to feel secure and in control and to keep from wasting time.
At this moment most of my drawers are far from neat and I am feeling some anxiety about not having – or making – the time to sort out accumulated papers, memorabilia, pictures – all sorts of things. I have this horror of dying and leaving a big mess for my kids.