Opening the curtains

The night before, Stella called and left a message on my machine saying:

‘I don’t want to cancel, but I had a difficult meeting today and I’m feeling even more fragile than usual. I just wanted to call and warn you’.

I called back and left a message on her machine:

‘No problem, if you like we can work a shorter day, only three hours or so.’

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Stella showed me two large empty boxes, which were waiting for us in the front room where there were stacks of video tapes.

Our first task was to move the last of the Christmas decorations from the dining room to the spare bedroom, leaving space for some treasured mementos to take their place. Next, we moved some linen and bedding which had been gathered onto the sitting room sofa. Some was put into it’s final home the airing cupboard and some into the spare bedroom from where, Stella thinks, it will at some point be tossed. In preparation, Stella had pulled up the coverlet on the spare room bed so there would be a place to put the pillows and duvets.

I’m usually early for my appointments and often spend 10 minutes reading in bus shelters, so I don’t arrive before the client is ready. This time, I ran into Stella who was running an errand as I came out of the tube station. We walked back to her place together.

Despite the phone call she was prepared and knew what she wanted us to do. But first she gave me an A.A. Milne poem “The Old Sailor” which she had printed out for me. It’s about a shipwrecked sailor who can’t decide what to do first as his situation gets worse and worse. Here’s the last verse:

‘And so in the end he did nothing at all,
But basked on the shingle wrapped up in a shawl.
And I think it was dreadful the way he behaved -
He did nothing but basking until he was saved!’

Stella said: ‘I think it was Cluttergone coming which stopped everything going round and round in my head.’

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‘Those clothes in the hallway don’t live there.’ said Stella, ‘I just wanted you to see that I did send them to the dry-cleaner as we discussed.

‘Stella had moved boxes from the sitting room by herself. She had also set up her new TV and DVD player and was now enjoying the room.

While it sounds minor, in fact, as Stella said, she was taking on board the process that requires ‘preliminary/temporary sorting” and that putting like things together helps. Further, clearing the sofa meant that the sitting room now looks like a proper room with just a few boxes.

Finally, we did some preliminary paper sorting in the living room. This is the paper which in the first visit Stella had said ‘Ignore those piles, I know what’s in them’. On the second visit, she let me put several piles into boxes, leaving the boxes where the piles had been. Today we ended up with two bin liners of rubbish and three bags of recycling!

The crowning moment of the day came when Stella opened the curtains and said.

‘I could imagine having someone around for a drink, now!’

We admire the nail polishes

Opened the door. Big smile from Stella.

Not only was the hallway still clear, she'd potted up two amaryllises to sit on the front hall table.

Stella led me to the kitchen window. There was more to see, she'd also potted up some flowers for the newly cleared garden.

Several times over the past 3 visits, Stella had said: "I can think of things to do, but I can't actually do them unless you are here." After we'd admired the potted plants, she said: "Guess what! You know how I said I couldn't do anything without you being here, even if I could plan? Well, I've sorted out the downstairs bathroom cupboard and put away the nail polish bottles that have been living on the sitting room side table."

"That's great! What do you want to do today?"

Stella showed me two large empty boxes, which were waiting for us in the front room where there were stacks of video tapes.

"These are the oldest tapes and I want to put them into the boxes. I'm not ready to throw them away, but I am ready to start putting them away. I took on-board what you said on the first visit about videos being an outdated technology. I am upgrading to DVDs and a better TV”

On that first visit, I had slightly moved a stack of videos and had provoked a cry of distress from Stella. I was very impressed by the journey she had made in so short a time. The boxes were MUCH too big and it took both of us to wrestle them up the stairs to the spare room. We laughed and vowed to never, ever again pack anything heavy in large boxes.

Besides clearing the piles on the floor, some bookshelves were freed from videos, so we moved some books from the stair treads onto the shelves. We also started working on a new room, pushing things around and doing some preliminary sorting. There was one last surprise: Stella and I had been meeting every two weeks. She had some upcoming commitments that would mean a three-week break between meetings. Rather than doing that, she wanted to book two appointments one week apart.

Just before I left, Stella said, "You haven't seen the bathroom cupboard yet"

We went and admired the row of nail polishes in the cupboard.

When I got home, I shared my diary with Beverly and we discussed whether Stella would be willing for us to publish it as a blog. We were both very impressed by her insights and her willingness to go at a slow steady pace.