Issue link: https://imageup.uberflip.com/i/620580
4 OUR YUCAIPA | JANUARY 2016 I will never tell you "I hope you try to do your best" By Courtney Fox Taylor My least favorite word is 'hope.' My friends make fun of me because when I tell people that, I sound like Scrooge's Uncle Grumpy McHitler. I don't dislike the concept of hope, just the meaninglessness of the expression. It's an empty word. It makes people think they've done something when they've really just drawn in some air and then blew it back out. "I hope you feel better." That's nice and all but you might as well say, "Ducks enjoy water." I still don't feel good but at least with the second sentence I can distract myself thinking about ducks. "I hope I find a good job." Yeah, we all do. We want to you do well. Hoping to find a good job isn't the same as getting your resume together, or going to school and learning something marketable. "I hope I meet someone this year." Well get off your butt and go to places where people are. Introduce yourself. Interact with your fellow human beings. You'll meet a lot of someones. You get the idea. Yoda said, "Do or do not. There is no try." Try, hope — both are empty words. You go, Yoda. Last year I read a book that I bought in an airport gift shop, probably the best place to find a book. The selection is slim (give me 10 choices, max, plus a Diet Coke and a Snickers) and the books are easy. They're meant to pass the time while you literally go from point A to point B. The book is called The life-changing magic of tidying up: the Japanese art of decluttering and organizing, by Marie Kondo. I am a disorganized hoarding slob at heart and know that I can do better so I thought reading the book might actually be good for me. I have to admit I haven't gotten to the part about cleaning your office, to which my office mates will attest. But I did go through the clothes section and it was magically life-changing. My closet was a study in fashion archeology. I had strata from the early 90s (which is actually making a troubling comeback ala ripped jeans that make people ask, "do you live with wolves?"), an early 2000s layer and what passed as the fashion of today. I had sizes from 2 (which I was for about seven minutes after a year of poverty (daily food budget $2) topped with a spectacular week-long stomach flu) to a prosperously plump 14. My drawers were jammed with shirts in various states of decay. The holier ones were reserved for my hair-dying sessions. I had bras that also reflected my changing shape. Pre-kid 20s, breast-feeding growth and menopausal continental shift. Why was I keeping everything? Did I hope that the closet fairy would wave her sparkly wand and get rid of everything that I hadn't touched in 20 years? No, I didn't want to give up the Courtney that could pull off those pants with that shirt in those shoes wearing this bra like I did that one time at Las Consuelas when I walked in and the bartenders turned and pointed. When you get bartenders to turn and appreciate you, that's the tops. It was a blue one-piece shorts outfit, hello 1991, size 2. I would go into my closet and get a glimpse of this bartender bait once in awhile and remember that shining moment. I also realized I probably could no longer fit my leg into the torso hole. So, as the book urged, it was time to purge. I took everything out of my closets and drawers and made a mountain size pile on my bed. Then I started to fill hefty bags with clothes. I lingered with outfits that had good memories or good intentions (that white glittery number I bought for a special occasion that never happened). I told them, out loud as Kondo had instructed, that I appreciated having them in my life and that they needed to go to a new home and have a new life. My husband slowly backed out when he came in and I was whispering a tender goodbye to a hair ribbon. I filled eight giant bags and two large suitcases (thinning my suitcase herd was a bonus). I gave them all to my friend Gloria who has family in New Mexico who appreciated the hand-me- downs. I refolded all the shirts that were left and put them in sideways, not stacked. Kondo explained that you can see everything that way and things don't sit, pressing wrinkles in as they wait to be worn. She said to lay out underwear, not fold it. She also said not to ball up your socks and just throw them willy-nilly into a drawer. But I read that part after I'd balled up all my socks and thrown them into the drawer. So my socks are sad. But the rest of my clothes are happy and regularly worn. I have 20 percent of what I used to have, everything is spread out and the bars holding the hangers aren't bending down on the verge of collapse. And you know what? I miss NOTHING. Not one thing. I haven't had a moment when I've said, "Damn it! I want to wear those cut-offs I rocked in 1997." I have my memories of what I did, not of what clothes I wore. I don't need memories sucking up a hanger. For all of you who are hoping to make a change for the new year or want to try to improve this or that, just stop. Do or do not.