Tina and I dropped off at least half of our wardrobe at Goodwill this afternoon.  It felt great.  As far as clothing, I am just down to the bare essentials.  There is something about eliminating excess that releases anxiety and gives me a sense of clarity.  This purge got me thinking about those spaces in our lives that gather clutter, and how good it feels to clean them out.  If lately you’ve been in a funk, try breathing simplicity into one of the following:

Digital Space

• MP3 Library.  I love my iTunes library.  It’s deep and wide.  But to be honest, I haven’t listened to that live DMB album in two years.  Get rid of the files you don’t use.  Pare it down to what you love.
• Desktop.  You probably see this more than you see your reflection in a mirror.  Use folders and the trash to give yourself a cleaner view.
• Inbox.  Get rid of those old e-mails and make some spam filters.  It’ll feel great.
• Cell Phone Contacts.  Do you really still need the number to Louis’ Novelties? This is an important social space, and simplifying it can actually help you stay in touch with people you care about.

Your Car Trunk

Cleaning this out will give you a great excuse to go to the beach, mountains, or Goodwill.

The Closet

Clothes are about relationships, identity, and expression.  We dress up or down depending on the occasion.  We pick out shirts in our favorite colors, shoes in the latest style, and outfits that fit our mood.  But these pile up, and closets get cluttered.  To eliminate anxiety in this space, get rid of anything you have not worn in six months.

Mental Space

Sometimes its best to be direct.  If you are stressed, take a few minutes to meditate and clear your head.  Try freewriting.  Put the pen to the page and fill it up with whatever comes out.  Then throw it away and leave the mental clutter behind.

Your Fridge

Clean out the old containers, pots, and cartons.  Leave only what is edible, fresh, useful.  This can take away some of the guilt surrounding food, or at least help you take stock of your diet, and see if you need a change.

There are many more spaces that attract clutter.  This short list is just intended to inspire us to simplify.  Had any experience with this yourself?  Anymore suggestions?

Folding laundry is THE ritual for domestic spirituality.  I’m not talking about any specific spirituality.  I’m talking about that state of rapture where you become one with your domestic task; where time melts and your body-mind is at peace.  You could even call it your “happy place.”

Many of us know this truth.  But beware brothers and sisters!  Heresy slinks surely around the corner whispering you away from the way, the truth, and the lint.  I was accosted by such foul untruth the other day when two gentlemen informed me that doing the dishes was far more fulfilling than folding laundry.  (I know this is hard to face, but the only way to kill a snake is with a snake dart).

They claimed that dishes rivaled laundry because “folding laundry is so boring,” and “when you clean dishes you are plugging in to the great cycle of nourishment.”  They loved the fact that when you do dishes you get wet.  And one false prophet even stated that he would let the dishes build up for days in order to have a sloppy Palmolive orgy.

Allow me scrape these dust bunnies into the can.  First of all, what you get when you get wet is chapped and pruny.  Second, when my sink fills up it smells like the devil and moves like a wolf spider.  Doing the dishes deals with dirty, while folding laundry deals with clean.  When you fold laundry you are doing zen oragami.  You are an artist.  How do you want to fold that t-shirt?  Department store flip or Grandma roll?  Will you fold your wife’s danties?  (no they are impossible–just put them in a pile for her to sort out).  Thank you.  Next!  I could care less about washing my garlic press with one hand, but the challenge of folding socks with a single extremity will keep me riveted for minutes at a time.

So stand firm in the way fellow-folders!!  Give me an iPod and a fluffy pile and may the dishes be damned.

There were the daily mom hugs, the I-haven’t-seen-you-in-forever-good-buddy hugs, the “little” brother tacklings because he secretly wants to give me 4 hugs a day himself hugs, the sister hugs were few, but very appreciated, the long-lost friend I meet in the airport when the flight was delayed hugs, the cousin hugs, the grandparent hugs are out of this world, the new friends made on New Year’s Eve hugs were pleasantly cautious, the crazy dog I was pet sitting definitely bounded more than hugged, but I say it counts, the best friends’ moms’ hugs were totally a bonus, and then at trip’s end, the welcome back to Seattle hugs to top it all off. All in all, it was a fabulous Holiday of Hugs for this tired student.

How did your holiday season rate on the hug-o-meter?