"The Final Frontier"

My family and friends have a bit of a running joke about me: when Lissa gets bored, she rearranges her apartment.  There might be a grain of truth to how that started out -- in middle school, I frequently rearranged my bookcases in order to quiet my mind and let me think clearly about what books I had available to read. That led to bedroom rearrangements in high school, dorm room rearranging in college, and optimum space utilization reviews in each of my apartments since moving into my own place after grad school.  The process has nothing to do with boredom, however.

How I utilize space says everything about the focus of my thoughts. If a room revolves around books, I'm reading. If it revolves around a table, that's where I'm working. If there's nothing restful to gaze at, my mind is a flurry. I tend to be very focused on one or two things at a time -- even when a million projects are floating in the periphery of my thoughts, one or two steal 90% of my attention. So, when I begin to tear apart space, it's because the things that I'm trying to focus on are at odds with what my environment is guiding me to think about.

I flipped my flat around tonight, and the new space just screams "relaxation," and "camaraderie," and "openness".  It makes much better use of light and space -- and after I fix a few things (find legs for my coffee table, re-hang the artwork, choose paint colors, get the bike into storage) it will be perfect for entertaining friends.

Which is really important, because 12 hours ago it was anything but.  The whole flat revolved around my desk -- a place where I tend to spend an inordinate amount of time doing work after I've left the office for the day.  I have a very nice office -- a gorgeous, new, mission-focused, LEED-certified building in midtown, filled with fun, friendly, passionate, brilliant people doing amazing things.  My cubicle contains everything I need in order to be effective at my job -- which means that there is no good reason to have the center of my apartment be a secondary workspace.

The desk is now tucked behind a door where it's more than half out of sight. I have a bag of books, articles, white papers, and notes packed to bring to Manhattan with me in the morning.  More importantly, my living room is now focused on conversation, with plenty of seating and space for a group of floor cushions when friends come to visit or a yoga mat when I make time to practice. My sewing machine, guitar, saxophone, sheet music, games, and craftng materials are easily accessible, rather than shoved in hard-to-get-to nooks. The bedroom, even with the desk in the behind-door alcove, is restful.  I'm going to drag my Mother and Sister here for two days to help me sort through some things that I still have way too much of, but that can wait until later in the summer.  Only a few casualties -- a beautiful vase that I bought from the Corning glass works in college, my 20-year-old alarm clock that was held together with duct tape before taking a tumble from the side table, and the circulator fan (knocked over by the cats in a frantic scramble to escape from the "OMG LOUD MONSTER IN THE WINDOW who's going to EAT us!"). Not bad, considering how many things I usually drop and break.

I have room -- at home -- to think about and focus on the things that are priorities, which means that I can finally quiet my brain a little and have an easier time getting the big things accomplished. My best friend calls this "rearranging my chi." That's a little froufy for me, but whatever you call it, the process works.

Hurrah.

First published at NYC to the Nines