In Place

I am not a neat freak.  I can live with a shirt or two draped over the back of a dining room chair.  A dust bunny or two tagging along with air currents sweeping across my kitchen floor does not particularly trouble me.  That girl and I will sometimes allow plates, cups, bowls, and glasses to stack into modern art in the kitchen sink. 

At the same time, I am bothered immensely by some articles from everyday living I perceive as out of place.  Papers, for example, are a big thing.  Any sort of papers.  Newspapers.  Notes.  Magazines.  I find myself constantly stacking and aligning them relative to whatever environment they occupy.

I have a habit of studying and working on my sofa with papers and books aligned around me. My late wife sometimes tweaked my arrangements when I left the room.  She derived great amusement in watching me—quite automatically—nudging everything back in order immediately upon my return.  It took me years to catch on.

On occasion, something more feral than books and papers will catch my attention.  The other day this happened with a scattering of cuties that girl had left on the counter.  After finding them scattered haphazardly across the counter on a couple trips to the refrigerator, I arranged them into an arrangement that did not bother me.

On a later trip to the fridge, I realized what I had done.   I captured a photograph with my smarter-than-me-phone.

-- Mitchell Hegman