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SALT LAKE CITY — It's National Cleaning Week and I am so excited I could just lie here and watch one of four zombie-themed shows currently playing on my small-to-medium screen TV (not including golf or CNN.)
When I am through watching the tube, my wife would like me to live with less through downsizing — which means that I am supposed clean out the food room in case the kids have to move back in.
To instruct me on the proper way to throw stuff out, my wife wants me to hop on the Internet and familiarize myself with feng shui, an art developed 3,000 years ago that eventually replaced staring at each other as the national pastime, quickly becoming as popular as throwing rocks at things.
Feng shui-ing (verb) my house is supposed to help me find my luo pan, which will, in turn, define my bagua, cleanse my soul and bring peace through flowing Qi in my dragon corner and establish harmony through the meat freezer. (Look it up!)
However, in the time I used to extensively research how to spell it, I have found out that feng shui (not a verb) has little to do with what I have been told. It is not throwing all my stuff away, painting all the walls white, or weaving bamboo and ficus trunks.
Nor does it have anything to do with sweet and sour sauce, which is the most disappointing.
Is less actually less?
Feng shui, to my understanding, is an entire color and dragon-room "energy re-orientation" kind of thing. It is not having the kitchen close to the back door or having the bed on a windowless wall under a beam. It is yellow in the kitchen and round, blue-colored plates for weight loss — no square plates and no wire hangers. Frankly it doesn't make sense to me.
Not having clutter is supposed to be part of "The Feng" as well, but it is also part of Martha Stewart's best practices, featured in Oprah's magazine, and first on my grandma Ruby's extensive list of pet peeves.
Not having clutter is supposed to be part of "The Feng" as well, but it is also part of Martha Stewart's best practices, featured in Oprah's magazine, and first on my grandma Ruby’s extensive list of pet peeves.
My wife's friend, we shall call her Mrs. Mecky (because I think that will really bug her), has lived by the law of "The Feng" for years. For Mrs. Mecky, "The Feng" means not having stuff. She has nothing in her house. Even her drawers are empty. Her kids live out of a wardrobe and a plastic bin or two.
Beckyho (her first name) uses "The Feng" as an excuse to get rid of everything. Recently she was reminiscing about a happy moment she remembered when she made a vase in a pottery class, smiling as she recalled the pleasant feelings associated with its making. I asked where she kept the vase and she said, “Oh I threw it out. You know — feng shui.”
No way, feng shui
I am clearly not on the side of minimalism, but I am not waving pom-poms for its polar opposite — hoarding. I have been known to keep stuff around.
I drank the Kool-Aid handed me by advertisers and retailers long ago. "Stuff" is the stuff of dreams!
Stuff fills the empty crack of our pathetic lives — and by "our", I mean "my." How else do I show the world, and my dad, that I am successful if not for the stuff I collect?
I kept my son Ihomas’ cast from kindergarten and the cool X-ray where his arm is broken enough that it looks like a snake. I keep the cast in its own little wooden box, mostly because it still smells like vinegar and feet.
I still have my parents' wedding cake topper, a Halloween costume of mine from the Jimmy Carter era, and a collection of broken frames. I have never met a pair of socks I didn’t like. I keep them all. I am a sentimental saver, shopper and stuff storer.
Beckyho Mecky is unaffected and impartial. Her house is also a heck of a lot cleaner than mine. But her idea of "The Feng" has taken over her life. She has kept nothing important to her, nothing that might evoke any kind of feelings, nothing that would get in the way of her picking-up and moving to Pocatello.
However, she has never really planned to move. She enjoys her house and loves the clean white walls. And it works for her.
I have stuff. I thank my personal carp-scaled Chi Lin that I have stuff. Now, I just need to have the guts to box some of the stuff I don't really need and put it in a pile by my garbage can so my neighbor can look through it and take the stuff home to put it in his storeroom so I can borrow it later.
Beckyho has her problems, and I have mine. Mine are better.
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Main image: Does the family that feng shui's together, stay together? (Photo: Shutterstock)
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*Davison Cheney writes "The Prodigal Dad" series every week on ksl.com. Please do not call Davison's wife to offer her a deal on a gun. Do check out his other writings at davisoncheneymegadad.blogspot.com**
