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Pesi Dinnerstein - A Cluttered Life: Searching for God, Serenity, and My Missing Keys

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Book:
A Cluttered Life: Searching for God, Serenity, and My Missing Keys
Author:
Pesi Dinnerstein
Publisher:
Basic Books
Genre:
Books / Home and family
Year:
2011
Rating:
4 / 5
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A Cluttered Life chronicles Pesi Dinnersteins touching, quirky, and often comic search for order and simplicity amid an onslaught of relentless interruptions. When a chance encounter with an old acquaintance opens her eyes to the extent to which disorder has crept into every corner of her existence, she begins a quest to free herself from the excess baggage she carries and findsto her great surprisethat the meaning shes spent years searching for is right there in her own piles of clutter.
Dinnersteins battle with chaos is an odyssey of self-discovery that leads her from the obvious mess spilling out of closets and the backseat of her car to the more subtle forms of disorder in her life and, finally, to the most hidden expressions deep within herself. In the endwith the help of devoted friends, a twelve-step recovery program, and a bit of Kabbalistic wisdomher struggle with the things of this world is transformed from a distraction into its own journey of healing and personal growth. At turns insightful, unsettling, and wildly funny, A Cluttered Life is the story of how one woman found her true selfand spiritual fulfillmentthrough trying to make sense of her own muddled world.

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Table of Contents

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my mother, Sylvia Jacobs-Bernfelda true light in our worldwho taught me everything I know about clutter, except how to get rid of it.

In all chaos there is a cosmos; in all disorder a secret order.

Carl Jung

Introduction

This is a book about my relationship with clutternot an instruction manual about how to get rid of it (I wish I knew) nor a practical guide explaining how to better organize it (another big mystery to me), but an exploration of my intensely ambivalent affair with the subject.

As with most conflicted relationships, there is an unresolved tension here. It seems that I am continually drawn to the abundance that creates clutter in my life and then repulsed by the chaos that inevitably grows out of it.

For many years, I gave the matter little thought. I was on a serious quest for spiritual truth and had no time for issues of such minor consequence. In fact, I generally thought of my run-ins with clutter as nothing more than bothersome interruptions on my journey. I certainly wasnt about to stop searching for God so that I could sort through a stack of neglected papers or mend a torn hem. But, eventually, it occurred to me that the piles of unfinished business disturbing my concentration in this world were probably blocking my way in the higher worlds as well.

I have to admit that my natural tendency to accumulate and lose myself in the overflow very likely qualifies as an addiction and certainly makes for an unmanageable life. I instinctively fill time and space with far more than they can reasonably hold and then find myself overwhelmed and unable to cope with it all.

A large part of the problem, I believe, is that I have little respect for boundaries, particularly those of my own making. Somehow, I dont see them as protective fences that keep me from exceeding my limits, but, rather, as hurdles to be jumped and overcome. And, so, with a shoehorn in my pocket, I travel through lifealways trying to slide in one more object, one more experience, one extra moment....

In writing this book, however, Ive come to realize that the cause of my behavior is not simply a character defect in need of remediation. My desire for abundance has many dimensionssome of them, no doubt, dysfunctional and better lived without; but others, deeply complex in nature and not so easy to write off.

What I am faced with, it seems, is a rather odd paradox. My chronic struggle with clutter keeps me too preoccupied with the physical world to focus on anything that transcends it. Yet, the clutter I attract is often a source of creative stimulation to me, as well as a natural outgrowth of my desire to embrace life spontaneously and without restraint. It is free borders and poor boundaries; infinite possibilities and overloaded circuits. When all is said and done, the whole thing is quite a tangled maze... a very strange and complicated relationship, indeed.

The following pages are my attempt to sort it all out and return to my spiritual pathhopefully, a bit wiser and less cluttered. However, my story is not being told from a quiet shore on the other side. Armed with new insights and fresh resolve, I may have finally begun the march toward simplicity and order, but I remain far from my destination; and, on most days, my life continues to feel overcrowded, off schedule, and likely to spin out of control at any moment.

Nevertheless, there is joy for me in the unfinished journey. And if, in the end, it takes a lifetime of zigzagging and circling and retracing my steps to gradually inch my way closer to freedom, I consider it a trip well worth the effort.

CHAPTER ONE

The Journey of aThousand Miles

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.

William Butler Yeats

It all began quite unexpectedly on the eve of my fiftieth birthdayDecember 23which almost always turned out to be the last day of the fall semester. After turning in my final grades, I decided to stop at the All-Night Bagel Hole for one last decadent snack. It was here that I ran into Barbie Bomzer and made the decision to finally change my life.

I hadnt seen Barbie in over twenty years, which actually suited me just fine, since I never liked her very much anyway. For a brief time in the 1970s, we taught remedial English together at a wild-west high school in the South Bronx. However, other than sharing an office and an occasional joke about the alliteration we each married intoshe had recently become Mrs. Barbara Bomzer, and I had been newly renamed Paulette Plonchakwe had almost nothing in common. I certainly never expected to see her again after I left the Bronx.

But there she was, sprawled across a table-for-four at the Bagel Hole. Never one to tolerate messalthough, God knows, I gave her plenty of opportunity for practiceshe now seemed fixated on trying to contain the cream cheese and chives oozing out of her pumpernickel bagel. Preoccupied as she appeared to be, I was hoping to slip out before she had a chance to notice. Unfortunately, I never made it past the checkout counter.

Paulette Plonchak, is that you? she called across the aisle in a voice that rang an octave higher and a decibel louder than necessary.

Since I had remarried and changed my last name, and most of my friends now called me by a different version of my first name, I was tempted to saywith some degree of justificationNo, Im sorry, its not, but I couldnt quite bring myself to do it.

Yes, it is, I finally responded. And is that you, Barbie Bomzer?

Yes, P. P., she answered, immediately slipping into our old nicknames. And still known around town as B. B.

After a few moments of strained conversation, we quickly exhausted our small reservoir of overlapping interests and mutual acquaintances and were reduced to commiserating about the difficulties of finding a decent bagel in New York these days. I couldnt wait to finish my coffee and escape.

However, just as I was about to gracefully make my exit, I noticed all the shopping bags filled with holiday-wrapped gifts that Barbie had piled on the adjacent chairs. I suddenly remembered the many times she had offered to drop me at the D Train when my car wasnt working and I was hauling around a knapsack full of papers to be graded.

Barbie, I heard myself askover the loud protest of my better judgmentcan I give you and your packages a ride somewhere ?

Since I was heading to Brooklyn and she was on her way to Bayside, we settled on a lift to the Long Island Railroad. The station was only a short distance away; but, in the end, the trip proved just long enough to unearth a host of awful memories and send me into my fifty-first year with a substantial dose of humiliation and a firm resolve to change my life once and for all.

The trouble began as soon as we approached my car.

Look, P. P., Barbie announced cheerfully, managing to point her finger toward the front windshield despite all of the packages she was balancing. I think the City of New York has left you seasons greetings.

Apparently, it hadin the form of a $55 parking ticket.

I bet that was the most expensive cup of coffee you ever bought. Even a Starbucks special double mocha latte with whipped cream and freshly ground cinnamon doesnt cost that muchat least not yet.

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