The Pleasure of Order

“Order is the only possibility of human rest.”    - Wendell Berry

 

I intended to start the day writing about how to solve 400 years of racism, but ended up cleaning my sock drawer instead. Sock and underwear drawer, to be precise. 

 

It was way overdue. All the socks whose mates met the fate of the washer/dryer disappearance and had been mourning, alone and unused, or taken out and mismatched, I put in a pile. Underwear that my mother would have been embarrassed to have discovered if I was in an accident and taken down to the hospital and stripped down, that too, I put in a pile. Both piles went into a bag and the bag went into the basement, either to fester there until our house gets sold (and no plans to ever put it on the market) or finally put out on the street at the next big recycling. 

 

And then, following my wife’s Marie Kondo advice, I got some shoeboxes to put into the drawer to yet more neatly house the survivors, who look so happy tucked away in such an orderly fashion. They’re happy, I’m happy and my wife, who really never has had to open these drawers but has complained relentlessly about them, should be happy—except now she wants to tackle the closet.

 

Maybe. But first the solution to racism.