With a trip North approaching, and Christmas rushing in like a freight train (or a mysterious midnight steam locomotive heading for the North Pole), I've had to go against a very basic urge of my nature. I've had to sit down and make lists.
There are people in the world who enjoy making lists, who feel lost in an trackless wilderness without the comforting boundaries of a list to keep them on course. My mother-in-law is one of those people. Her whole life is ordered and arranged by lists, and she snuggles into them as if they're made of fur. My husband, too, enjoys a list. For them, it's the first step to getting anything done. It's organized and freeing. It's uplifting.
As is possibly anticipated, I am not a list person. In fact, I'm actively an anti-list person. Lists, to me, are not made of fur. They're made of iron chain mail. Lists jeer at me, shout at me, and eventually scuttle off into hiding so I have to rewrite them. They spoil the view of my trackless wilderness by throwing up fences that I have to climb over. I approach a list like a mercenery soldier: it gets the job done, but I don't like using it, and I dispose of its services as soon as possible.
Maturity and motherhood have forced me into listing. At the beginning of this week, I sat down and wrote out five lists of what needed to be done by this weekend: cleaning, buying, packing, etc. Then I threw the notebook aside and called Darren to wail about my fate for a while. Sure, it keeps me on track. Or rather, the sheer weight of the combined tasks keeps me from darting off onto side trails. The only thing that keeps me slogging through is the sweet knowledge that I will get it all done, and then I can rip the lists into pieces and dance on the remains.
-- SJ
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
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9 comments:
LOVE your title!
And I LOVE the word picture of dear Bev Jones snuggling into a list like it was made of fur...:)
Claire you stole the words out of my own mouth. I hope your trip goes well! We are heading south as you head north and I haven't even started my own lists yet.
What about BABY NAME lists?
Baby Name Lists are entirely different. A Baby Name List is full of possibilities, not orders. Definitely made of fur.
-- SJ
Oh thank you, thank you, thank you. I am not alone in my anti-list making ideals. I come from a family of list makers and oh they are such bondage! My husband tries to get me to make lists all the time and I always forget something if I write it down.
Oh, and lists of interesting things are completely different than lists of things to do, or be gotten, or forgotten as it may go.
Without lists I would get nothing done. At least at the end of the day I can check off "make a list." -rlr
I admit, I think I am the worst kind of list maker. The high maintence list maker if there is such a thing!! I have every intention to make a list to try to become organized, and quite often never get around to making the list. "Where is the list?" my husband will ask. "I'm getting around to it," I answer as I try to finish something that should be on the list. After I finish most of the things that would be on the list, I often write the list. That way I can cross off all the things I have already done. That to me is my soft fur of comfort.
I am cracking up and have throughly enjoyed reading this entry. Personifying the list. How wonderful and I will probably quote you.
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