Today was spent in my classroom organizing things. With the help of my friend Maria and her son Danny, I sorted through about 20 boxes of books. They're now in boxes marked clearly with their themes so that I can locate them easily next year.
As I looked at vast mountains of books on my rug, I wondered "just how many books do I need?". I tried to justify keeping them all. Sure, I can justify them because the variety helps encourage my students to love books, but they take up a large amount of space. I finally decided to set aside several books to be donated to a summer program for children. I suspect that I'll probably want to add to that pile over the next few days.
At home later, I was replacing my brightly colored plastic hangers with the new flocked slim hangers. The increased space is actually quite noticeable and again I wondered, "do I need all this clothing?".
My life is feeling very compressed and overwhelming lately. Perhaps a good dose of spring cleaning is needed.
But for now, I shall close my eyes and let sleep, not clutter, fill me.
