K is for Kinds

from Edward Gorey's Gashleycrumb Tinies

When given latitude and time, I colour code.  Or if I'm a little anxious and things are beginning to overwhelm, I'll begin to sort.  I find peace when things are grouped by type and colour and size and shape.  

K is for kinds.

Not quite everything was ready, but I found myself sorting the M&Ms
as the first guests were knocking on the door...

I don't know when it started.  I didn't even realise it wasn't a thing everyone did until I was in the workplace implementing a new filing system and someone commented on my desire for coloured folders, matching highlighters and tabs.  

What was wrong with the vanilla manilla folders and the regulation hanging files? 

I didn't think there was anything wrong with what had gone before.  After all, the other was perfectly functional and fine. But for me the difference was like appreciating a window, which is a beautiful, functional and welcome thing, when you had the option of having a window that could also OPEN!  

With colour coding there is a instant visual indication of order and therefore harmony.  No need to dig beneath the surface, one glance and the glory is there before you.

And the act of creating that order is akin to putting the world to rights in a way that the world will never be put to rights.  

[I have to pause for a moment to consider the God Complex just described.]

I like boxes and drawers A LOT too because they offer the opportunity to compartmentalise.  A space for everything and everything in its place. The last house I ever rented was actually a house with no drawers (not even one, can you imagine?!), which forced me to Ikea to buy a drawer unit I truly coveted.  I have lots of little drawers with little things squirreled away in them.  Treasures.  Secrets.  Little bits and bobs that would be wholly lost if they didn't have that special place to be... Like my spare car key, or the cat lax, or a cigarette lighter (for birthday candles and blackouts), you get the idea...

This is the drawer unit once we moved to the Porter Street House.

  
So even though I no longer work in offices, I still find ways to colour code and sort, but not to get too crazy about it.  Hanging washing is a great and pleasurable opportunity, particularly with peg selection and ordering what goes where on the strands of line – I do try hard not to go out and re hang the washing when Mum's not done it my way (by the way) because I recognise that's not healthy.  Stacking the dishwasher too, not so much with colour but very much as a sorting and ordering exercise.


All that said, the stuff I haven't got to yet, the stuff that's not sorted and coded, is stacked.  So let it be known that until the items are separated into their kinds and disseminated into their places I have piles.