My Desk Needs a Desk

My desk overfloweth. There are many reasons.

I am juggling a lot of client projects. This is wonderful. Despite the mess, I’m keeping on top of it all.

I am working on two books—one a novel in progress for two-plus years that’s nearing the end of a first draft, the other a non-fiction project in concept stage. This is also wonderful and the fuel that keeps me going.

I’ve had a nasty cold since Thursday. It’s on its way out, but it needs to get lost.

I don’t have enough storage space in my office. Or I need to throw stuff out.

I am preoccupied with what’s happening to our country. I marched in Boston on Saturday. The state of my desk reflects the cacophony in my mind.

The clutter causes slippage—thank you notes to write for some volunteer responsibilities, a letter to pen to a friend, calls to set up a few doctor’s appointments for non-urgent issues, updates to my own website, home improvement projects that always fall by the wayside. Too many minutes following and sharing politics online adds up to not enough hours at day’s end.

This is compounded by the fact that the mounds on my desk seem to grow at certain times of year. Midwinter is one. Too much time indoors, hiding from the cold, not enough spent outside taking walks that clear my head, which enables me to clear my desk.

I know what I need to do. I just need to do it.

Evelyn Herwitz blogs weekly about living fully with chronic disease, the inside of baseballs, turtles and frogs, J.S. Bach, the meaning of life and whatever else she happens to be thinking about at livingwithscleroderma.com.