Brief movie review:

The Winslow Boy, directed by David Mammet

It's a period piece, and very "Mamet" -- precise language, controlled-to-the- point- of-being- invisible emotions, and wonderful acting.  For those who love a good tale and don't hate British accents, it's fine summer entertainment!

I was struck today by a persistent puzzle.  No, not puzzle.   Belief.  Fear?  Thought? Certainty?  Whatever it is, it's persistent in my life.

In my experience, there is a very thin façade of order, a shell perhaps, containing an inner core of chaos just waiting to break through.  Now, this doesn't mean that I'm all that orderly.  It means that I get really worried when I am not at least minimally orderly.  Anxious.  Panicky, even. 

I've pondered the possibility that I'm wrong about this.  I mean, it's possible that things aren't that awful under this thin shell of order.   Or, even, that the shell is thicker than I think it is.  It's even been suggested to me (thanks, Caren!) that chaos is the way it's supposed to be, and maybe I'm just fighting nature.  So, let's consider the evidence.

I know that if I do not clean up dishes, store food correctly, and generally maintain a fairly high level of cleanliness, at least in the hot humid summer months, I'll have an infestation of fruit flies or worse.  If I forget to give the dog his pills, he'll likely get fleas, or heartworm, and get sick and/or die.    And I might get fleas before he gets sick or dies!

If I don't maintain a certain amount of order with paper in my life, then bills don't get paid, utilities get cut off, and it's difficult to cook or store food. (See above.)  If I don't do laundry, my clothes are dirty, and eventually, I'd get some disgusting skin reaction to them.  If I didn't bathe... well, you get the idea.

So, the way I see it, the evidence suggests that order is important.  Without it,  we can have bugs and get sick or worse.  So maybe illness isn't chaos.  But anyone who has had an infestation of insects of any kind knows that they feel like chaos! 

But, the real root of my distress over a lack of order goes beyond, or not as far as, concern about physical chaos.  It has to do with being able to do what I want, when I want to do it.  And having others in my home be able to do the same.  And being able to have others into my home without having to apologize for the mess.  (I know, my friends visit me, not my clean house; but if you'd grown up with all guests being greeted at the door with "Come on in.  Hope you brought your shovel, so you can find a spot to sit down!", you'd understand.)

To me, order is about freedom.  A paradox? A contradiction?   I don't think so.  If you can't find a clear space without hours of work, then you can't do anything that requires a clear space.  If you can't find whatever tools you need to do what you want or need to do next, then you can't do that thing without spending a lot of time finding that tool first.  With order comes being able to find what you need, and the space that you want, to do what you want to do. 

Similarly, if you don't run out of basics, then you don't have to buy them before you can do anything that requires them.  We've all been there: we need to pay bills, but we can't find the bills.  Then we find them, but we're out of cheques.  So we find counter cheques, but then we don't have stamps.  Then we have to go buy stamps.  All this took a whole day, and all we wanted to do was pay the damned bill!

So, I place a high priority on maintaining enough order to be able to do what I want when I want to do it.  Except when I get too tired.  Or when someone mocks me for being so Virgo-ish.  (And I am a Virgo, who only believes in astrology whenever I read my horoscope.)  Or when there is something more fun to do than doing whatever would create order. 

When I abandon order, even temporarily, though, the shell cracks.   The chaos peeks through.  And I am again terrified into reconstructing the shell, making sure it's seamless.  And the result is the freedom I was seeking in the first place.

Is this a Virgo rationalization for being obsessive? Or have I stumbled onto a profound truth: that maintenace, when done with reverence and purpose, has meaning and value?  I'm either  a fool or a wise woman.  But that's okay: I've always aspired to being both.

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