Don’t you just love the feeling when you accomplish a chore that has been nagging at you to be done? I cleaned my studio (a big chore) and even rearranged the work spaces in deference to the wall mounted space heater we recently had installed so I can use the little workshop year round for writing and art. The huge oak writer’s desk that I’d dreamed of for twenty years, but never had a space for until I acquired my studio a few years ago, was blocking the air flow.

The day started with the studio in a mess, scattered with art supplies not stowed away in the cupboards, cubbies and other spaces I’d so carefully thought out when first equipping my little space. My plan was to swap positions of the mammoth desk and the art table, then turn the art table so that it fit up against the wall, rather than arranging it perpendicular the way the writing desk had been, cutting the room in half.

No point in putting the art supplies away when I would just be moving them to the opposite side of the studio once all the shifting around was done.

Yes, that means I moved everything in the studio from one place to another, in the midst of mounds of clutter. The room went quickly from a small mess to looking like a tornado when through it, as my mother used to say.

Eventually everything was in its place and all was right in my little world. As if to validate the sentiment, the sun chose that late hour of the day to finally shine through the cloud cover, angling in through the studio window to catch one of the many faceted prism hanging about. The room danced with rainbows.

Life plays out in much the same way. We keep accumulating psychic stuff, carrying it around with us, pushing it out of the way, stuffing it here or there until we can’t ignore the nagging mess any longer. That’s usually when we dig in, trying to get to the bottom of things, or to shake things loose, let them fall where they may and then begin picking up the pieces. We toss out what is no longer useful and then rearrange what we keep to better suit our needs. When we can finally, make some kind of order out of it all we feel better.

For a little while, at least. There is no such thing as getting all your ducks in a row and keeping them that way once and for all, and definitely not for happily ever after. There is just today and getting it right just for today can be a pretty big accomplishment.

So for today, my studio is clean, rearranged, efficient and full of rainbows. Just for today, it’s waiting for me to write the next great American novel. And for today, that’s enough.