The Joy of Messy Things

My adolescence was a disaster. I lived with an alcoholic grandfather and a grandmother whose addiction to pain pills caused her to fall asleep on the couch many nights waiting for my grandfather to stagger in after a binge at the American Legion. In addition, we lived in a run down inherited family home full of debris left over from its two year hiatus as a fraternity annex. From ages nine to twelve, my grandparents and I lived in a model home in Pleasant Meadows. (For those who remember the Monkees song, Another Pleasant Valley Sunday, you get the idea) Poor financial planning, overextension and/or the champagne taste-beer pocketbook mentality of my grandmother caught up with them and the pristine four story house was sold and we moved back to the old homestead.

I didn’t mind going back to the old neighborhood; I had friends there. But I did mind the trash piled on the back porch and the Vienna sausage sized roaches that skittered under the basement door at night to feast on the Purina Dog Chow in my dog’s bowl. I did mind the bathroom had only a subfloor and I had to bathe with Granddaddy Long Legs feeling their way around the porcelain sides of the tub. I minded that I was ashamed to bring friends over. I minded that make-out sessions were relegated to the front porch glider. I minded that I single-handedly moved furniture, boxes and a washer and dryer in an effort to have one neat clean space in the living room. I hung a curtain between the somewhat assembled part of the house and the disarray of the rest. To this day, mess and clutter in my own home or any other space I enter into sends my anxiety level sky high.

I have friends and family whose homes are straight out of House Beautiful. I am pretty sure eating off their floors would not result in disease and the “no shoes in the house” rule seems like a good approach to keeping it that way. When I leave those clean, neat spaces, I am envious. My home today is not like the place where I grew up. I do clean and things have a place, but I still get antsy when a cardboard boxes from Amazon pile up in the entryway. Or notes and papers from lay scattered across our dining room table. Or six pairs of shoes are clustered around the back door. Or errant dog and cat hairs float in the sunbeam coming through a streaked picture window. My shoulders start to tighten and that old feeling of shame creeps in…………

Then, yesterday, I had an epiphany. As I filled the bird feeder out back and cringed at the gazillion broken sunflower hulls, I realized the mess before me was the product of a beauty I enjoyed nearly every day. Birds of all shapes, sizes and colors landed in full view at eye level. I smile every time I see one of our cats perched on the table or their climber watching with tails swishing. I am thrilled at the sight of the rafter of five enormous turkeys stopping by to vacuum up the detritus dropped by songbirds onto our patio.

Then I start looking around at the fifty year old trees surrounding our house; the ones whose limbs and twigs litter our yard after every wind. The trees that drop their seed pods by the thousands in spring so they might proliferate and grow. The ones that release a compilation of colored leaves every fall that have to be raked over the hill. Those same trees offer shade and strong limbs to hold swings and rope tunnels for my grandchildren to play upon. One even whispered her name to me; Calliope – in a beautiful silent voice.

And then I thought about what my friend, Beth, used to call the chaos of toys, crayons, paints and little pieces of paper found during child’s play; messy research. Curiosity and discovery are rarely satisfied in neat little compartments. In retrospect, I came to understand how my grandparents chose to live was a symptom of a much deeper problem than apathy. They lived with despair and depression caused by their own family legacy and their perceived failures. Even though my teen-age years may have been tougher than many of my friends, I did survive and figured out I needed to do better for myself. The messy life I lived was the gateway to discover new patterns of behavior. I dropped out of high school but went to college and graduated summa cum laude. I married young but had three beautiful children who are amazing humans. I acquired jobs my degree didn’t always support but I ended a forty year career in good standing with enduring friendships and enough memories to fill volumes. I learned moderation and patience. Exposure to the broken and not so beautiful opened my heart to love and accept others from all walks of life. The only people I have trouble accepting are the ones who are judgmental and exclusionary. I discovered I had a spiritual life at a very young age and begged to be taken to church to learn about Jesus. I remember “talking” to Jesus as a child and my heart swelling with affection for an entity unseen but understood.

So as I sit and write this, I realize my messy life has been ordered all along. When I chose to see the mess as a hopeless jumble of junk to clean up, depression and despair were front and center. However, when I look at the bigger picture, I understand the mess can be borne from beautiful things and result in a discovery that transitions into redemption. The choice on the view has been mine to make all along.

Gwynn Wills is a former speech therapist, certified Amherst Writers and Artists workshop Affiliate and Leader and founder of The Calliope Writers Group. After growing up in Crawfordsville, her and her husband returned several years ago.