Thanks to Marie Kondo, our nature strips are groaning under the weight of tottering Pisa-esque towers of unwanted garage detritus.
Charity bins are engorged with now-reviled excess clothing.
Op shop volunteers are keeling over with fatigue as they attempt to deal with the output of Netflix watchers that grew a little tired of Ozark’s relentless violence and turned to what they thought was some light-hearted Japanese-inspired housekeeping.
E-Bay is awash with desperate attempts to gain some coin from last season’s barely worn frivolous purchases that no longer spark joy.
Every part of my being that has been ruled by the floordrobe, clothes-chair and the act of ‘shovage’ -which involves cramming everything into a cupboard then pushing it closed before the contents can fall out again – WANTS to believe in KonMari. Like every addict that clings to a new guru that promises a simple path to sobriety, I want to believe.
But I can’t even.
Here’s why:
I’m not sure she’s actually real
When Kondo was a mere child, her parents actually called a moratorium on her decluttering.
Today? There is no parent alive that thinks that their child is overindulging in decluttering.
She apparently got herself into such a spin about the state of her teenage bedroom and her inability to satisfy the decluttering demon within that she actually passed out when contemplating her clutter and remained unconsciously prone on her shag-pile for two hours. Today’s reality? Any teen that passes out in their bedroom has underestimated their ability to metabolise either a cannabis-derived product or the fumes of a long-neglected lunchbox.
She also wrote her thesis on decluttering.
Her methods are unsustainable
A festive break from work, the energy accumulated from several days of naps, a shift to cooler weather and the duress imposed by new years’ resolutions sparked a relentless quest on my part to transform my spare room. It needed to move on from a cluster of wicker baskets drooling with activewear, a queen bed whose only function was to provide refuge to a cubic metre of clutter and undetected cat vomit, and a shoe rack that lacked the spine to hold up a selection of my favourite shoes and perpetually slanted sideways.
I lost my temper, 2 kilos of sweat and 14 potential nap hours gutting this room. I invested a month’s worth of grocery budget into throw rugs, cushions and soft furnishings aimed at making it a sanctuary. Items that were layered like recklessly unsupervised lasagne went vertical and partitioned under Kondo rule.
Like that half hour window where your newly-zshushed black car scoots around all shiny before it rains or is subjected to a gentle dust shimmer, it looked temporarily amazing.
Three days later, I’d done a weeks-worth of laundry and found myself totally disinclined to sort that stuff vertically in keeping with the Kondo-faith. All bets were off.
Books
I can forgive Marie Kondo for setting a standard for tidying that involves actually fainting on the job.
I think I can subscribe to a view that you ditch things that you don’t love.
But EVERY SINGLE MOLECULE of my being totally rejects her concept that you should retain no more than 30 books.
Ms Kondo – despite my awe at your shiny hair, your Netiflix-goddessness, your faith in your convictions, I have to declare that on the basis of that last statement, you are dead to me.
I’m assuming that you think that one book of the thirty is yours which leaves me a scant twenty-nine to contain my forty-plus years of love and devotion to everything bookish from Enid Blyton to Lee Child.
No go darl.
My view is that if you’ve invested in the appropriate amount of cheapo Swedish flat pack furniture to house all your books then you are totally entitled to keep as many as you like.
I’m sorry Marie.
I’ve gotta let you go.
You don’t spark joy.