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The Chaos Cabinet (Journal Entry)

January 17, 2013


Things fall apart.
That is a line of a poem by Yeats that keeps going through my head. Yeats was describing the social unrest in postwar Europe during the early twentieth century. In the poem he compares the widespread insanity to impending Biblical Apocalypse.
So why is this poem going through my head? Personal upheaval looms. We are probably going to have to move. Donnie has had an interview in Columbia, so there is a chance we could move there. Or somewhere.
Granted, moving two hours away is not exactly on the same level as the world ending. But living in the same place for almost 14 years has created a comforting feeling of stability.
Our walls seem so solid. An immutable place, ever placid, unaffected by the raging winds of time.
Donnie punctured my denial bubble recently by urging me to clear out a cabinet, which will cut down on clutter when we move. This cabinet has a distinction. It is the most cluttered and disorganized cabinet in the house, a Black Hole of miscellany.
I try to avoid opening it whenever possible, not to become sucked in, but it is where we keep the plastic grocery bags, useful when scooping cat litter. Our cat loves this cabinet. To her it is a rattly amusement park filled with strange objects to explore.
They are the disorderly flotsam of living: the fish aquarium that has not had a fish in years, empty flower vases, small holiday decorations. The Black Hole is also where we keep all of our useless, sentimental items given to us by people we love.
I have been plotting to clean out The Black Hole out for years, but somehow other things always take priority: free-lancing or cleaning the parts of the house that visitors are more likely to see.
Dread is a factor too. When you start cleaning out a messy cabinet, you realize that any surface cleanliness is only a sad illusion. Beneath the apparent order of a clean counter and freshly vacuumed carpet, chaos churns. The Black Hole is like a doorway into the seething disorder of the universe.
Opening it means seeing a cluttered mess, which is bad enough, but it may also be the first step to moving to Columbia or elsewhere.
Columbia may not sound so bad. After all, I have relatives there, and it would increase my nearness to a beach. Columbia also has some delightful ethnic restaurants and Indie movie theaters.
However, I always imagine the worst. I remember Donnie telling me that Columbia was in sort of a geographical pit, with dry, windless, brutally hot summers. This description makes me imagine a Venus-like landscape, with overheated, wavering air distorting everything around it.
And a yowling cat.
To be fair, the yowling cat is not specific to Columbia, but is part of my dread of moving anywhere. We learned that my cat is severely averse to travel when we moved to Atlanta. She hates the cat carrier and distrusts car motion. She cries herself hoarse any time we take her anywhere.
We once tried giving her some travel Valium prescribed by a veterinarian, but her disorientation frightened her and made everything worse.
If we move anywhere at all, a yowling cat is going to be part of the experience, and I have to accept it.
Anyway, maybe moving will inspire new things to write about. At the moment the Black Hole awaits, a spinning vortex of rattly bags, coasters, and silk flowers.
Should I open it? Should I embrace the chaos and bid hello to all the detritus of my life here? Should I take my first bold step into the unknown?
Things fall apart.
The cabinet door, all innocence, beckons.
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