BOMH BOARD PRESIDENT LETTER – Tied Up in Knots or Does Housework Really Make you Ugly?

Tied Up in Knots or Does Housework Really Make you Ugly?

Board President – Lee Richards

The other day I needed a light blanket for a workshop I was going to attend.  I knew the perfect one to take.   In beautifully muted colors, this special wrap drapes over the door of an antique chifforobe in my living room.  I love its velvety texture and the array of flowing   tassels on both ends.  As I was folding it to pack in my bag, the fringe  on one end caught my eye. It had drastically changed.

The once lovely threads had become outrageously entangled with each other.    No longer soft and flowing, they hung in a solidly-matted, unappealing, mass of their own.
“What the heck?”   I shrieked.   “When did this happen?”   “How did this happen?”  And, the most important question of all,  “Who did it?”
Of course, there was no resounding, “I did,” from any part of the house. Even the cats were silent which was, in itself, highly suspicious. Thus, I slowly began untangling the mystery-mess that had attached itself to the end of my beloved throw.

Because time was short, I enlisted—no, more like drafted— my husband to help with this project. I grumbled and clock-watched when the metaphorical quality of the situation presented itself.

How often we take things for granted — things like our talent for creating, our ability to see the potential in an idea or object, our desire to create order from chaos or chaos from order.

When we tap into that talent, we fail to properly appreciate it, as I did with my blanket.   We hardly think about our ability to create, because it will always be there in the same condition we left it.  We use it without being aware of the awesomeness of the feat we are undertaking. We carelessly throw it over the door, sure that it will be ready to use when the urge to create strikes.

Like all things worthwhile, the gift of creativity is nurtured by patience and sometimes great perseverance.   We need to feed our creative spirit and keep its spark alive by acknowledging it,  by brushing  out the  tangles that no longer serve  our creative vision,  by knocking down cobwebs  from the neglected corners and, yes, by purging  those things that  hold us back.
Knots—both literal and symbolic—are debilitating.   Let’s clean house.