Many of you who were young in the 70’s will remember playing with Weebles, those delightfully wobbly egg-shaped toys that came in a variety of characters and figures. My small set was comprised primarily of people-shaped Weebles, but the stores also sold animal and storybook character versions, among others.

Regardless of the appearance of the egg-shaped doll, its main attraction was that, despite its tendency to careen wildly out of balance when you pushed it, it was impossible to actually push the thing all the way over. Hence, the Playskool marketing slogan above.

Didn’t you always wonder what kept those little guys balanced, and allowed them to pop back up whenever you tried to tip them over? It turns out Weebles were designed specifically to be able to repeatedly achieve something called “mechanical equilibrium” (which is engineer-speak for “Weebles wobble, but they don’t fall down”). They can never permanently lose their balance.

Loss of balance. We’ve all been there: times and places when we have had too much of one thing, and not enough of another. Maybe we have had too much work and not enough play (and here I see “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” typed over and over on reams of paper – creepy!). Or maybe we have taken in too much food or drink, and haven’t exercised enough. Perhaps our days have contained too much technology and not enough contact with the natural world. Or we have had too much social activity in our schedule and not enough quiet, alone time.

In a previous post I told the story of my family’s recent geographical move and the way in which it both disrupted and enriched my life. One of the things I learned about myself in the midst of all that change was how out of balance my world had been before the move. Don’t get me wrong. I loved my life during our New York years. I had two very fulfilling jobs, several artistic and athletic hobbies, and the care of two wonderful, if challenging, adolescents, each with their own set of varied and interesting pursuits.

If someone had suggested to me at the time that my life was out of balance, I would have fervently disagreed. Sure, my dance card was pretty full, but everything I was doing was important to me and fed me on some level. I would have been hard-pressed to name a pursuit I was willing to give up. Plus, one of my biggest personal strengths, if I do say so myself, is that I am a great organizer, and so I was able to juggle all of these responsibilities and still keep my sanity. Or so I thought.

Our move, not surprisingly, afforded me some perspective. I realized soon after the transition that the aforementioned life, although full and rich, was also wildly out of balance.

While in the middle of things, I had told myself I was coping well with all my responsibilities, and could point to a series of daily, weekly and even yearly accomplishments as evidence of this. But the real truth, that I could finally see through the more objective lens of some physical and emotional distance, was that I was exhausted much of the time, exasperated and short with people, didn’t sleep well, and had mini anxiety attacks on almost a daily basis.

I know, right? It seems like I should have noticed something was off. The problem was, I was so IN my life at the time that I couldn’t see the pathology of it. I needed time and distance from my day-to-day responsibilities to help me see what was really happening to me in the midst of them. Once I could see, even feel, the truth of things, I realized I had the ability to course correct, and I begin to make a few changes.

“We can be sure that the greatest hope for maintaining equilibrium in the face of any situation rests within ourselves.”
Francis J. Braceland

Back in those New York days, when my son and daughter were about 10 and 12, respectively, we went as a family to see the movie Spy Kids 3D. This was the first 3D movie experience for most of us, my son included. The movie was a good family flick, fun and fast moving, if not too intellectually challenging, and the 3D experience (dorky glasses included) heightened our enjoyment of the story. But as we were leaving the theater, it was clear my son wasn’t feeling well.

He said he felt dizzy and sick to his stomach. Thinking he had eaten too much popcorn (he was 10, after all), we comforted him as best we could and headed home. This is where things got a little scary. As we made our way home, my son became more and more altered, still off balance and nauseous, but now alternately unresponsive and slurring his words. We changed course and headed for the emergency room.

One look at my son as we entered the emergency room doors and a woman waiting there opened her eyes really wide and (graciously) indicated he could go to the head of the line. Okay, so that was REALLY scary; it’s not a good thing to look so bad that someone thinks you should move to the head of the emergency room line. Finally able to see my son in bright light, I saw why the woman looked so concerned. He looked weak and lethargic, seemed barely to be able to stand, and his face was pale with an icky green cast.

Thankfully, my son was seen fairly quickly and eventually diagnosed with labyrinthitis, an inner ear disorder resulting in a loss of equilibrium, nausea and fainting symptoms. The doctor on duty said his condition was probably a reaction to the 3D movie experience*, and predicted that with time and rest his symptoms would abate. Sure enough, by the time we left the hospital my son was feeling more like his old self. And by the next morning, his body was completely back in balance.

“Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.“
Robert Fulgham

Like Weebles, I think humans are also designed to be able to continually return to a state of equilibrium. In the case of my son’s labrynthitis, time and rest eventually allowed his body to regain its sense of balance. But sometimes it is not enough to wait for our body to take care of things. Sometimes we have to step in and create a space in which we can see and feel the ways in which our lives are uneven or off kilter, and then begin the process of straightening things out.

Now, although it worked for me, I don’t recommend that everyone move half way across the country so you can see the out-of-balance places in your lives more clearly! But I do recommend the habit of occasionally making spaces in your life in which you can hear and respond to that inner voice that tells you things are way off. Some possibilities:

• Take a short, restful, vacation, during which you are not expected to be active or learn anything.
• Attend a silent retreat. Be quiet with your own thoughts.
• Take a weekly yoga class.
• Start a daily walk or morning meditation habit.
• Implement a technology-free day or week. Unplug for a while.
• Practice rebalancing – act “as if” you are making a certain change (shifting a priority, giving up a responsibility or activity, etc.) and see how it feels.

These are just a few ideas. You will, no doubt, come up with your own. Whatever you do, find a way to hit the pause button, breathe and ask the questions:

• Is my life out of balance?
• What, exactly, is out of balance here?
• How can I get my balance back?

And then make the necessary change(s). The process may not be easy. Some people or activities, even important ones, may have to go. But, in the end, the harmony you gain will be worth the loss.

Go on. Get in touch with your inner Weeble. Stop careening back and forth and find your equilibrium.

*Although the connection seemed a little sketchy at the time, it turns out the doctor was on to something. Some studies seem to show that the unnatural eye-movements demanded by 3D can cause the eyes to work harder than usual, and it is possible for some people (children, especially) to experience a physiological response similar to motion sickness after watching a 3D movie, with symptoms such as dizziness, disorientation, nausea and loss of balance. Parents, you are hereby forewarned.

I recently became intrigued with the idea of messiness, and so began to try to write a bit about it.  However, most definitely not being an expert on the subject (more about that later), my musings were – big surprise – rather uninspiring.  After struggling for a while with my own thoughts, I decided to reach out to family and friends for some different perspectives.  Lucky for me (and you), many responded to my request and so helped make this blog post more of a “community effort” rather than merely my own, personal take on things.  Enjoy the result!

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When my children were very young, some friends and I formed a playgroup that met once a week at alternating homes (we frequently joked we should really call it a mommy group, because over time we found the social opportunities it offered our band of stay-at-home moms far outweighed those it gave our children).  One morning, as we were all observing, and only nominally trying to control, the chaos that is a toddler playgroup, one of the mothers – a woman with two extremely active toddlers – remarked that she would really like to have a few more children, enough to make her life, as she said, “a little messy.”

Full stop.

“You’re kidding, right?” I said.  “You want more of THIS?”  I totally didn’t get it.

You see, I have always spent large chunks of my day trying to keep my life tidy. I’ve organized every closet in my home.  I mean EVERY CLOSET.  And every cabinet.  Multiple times.  The work surfaces of my life – my office and home desks, my kitchen counter, even my tack locker at the barn – are impressively tidy.  I am also a “tweaker:” as I move through the spaces of my home, I am constantly straightening art on the walls, fluffing a pillow or adjusting the position of a knick-knack.  (I would do this at my friends’ homes too if I wasn’t sure they would take offense.)  Even my writing process is neat.  I can’t stand the disorder of a misspelling, a grammar mistake, or a problem with the structure of a sentence, so I edit as I go.  No rough (a.k.a. “messy”) drafts for me.

Come to think of it, even many of my hobbies (jigsaw puzzles, gardening, scrapbooking) are about making order out of a mess.

Okay, so maybe one or two friends have used the term OCD when referring to my organizing compulsions tendencies, but still.  Doesn’t everyone, on some level, prefer a clean and organized home to a messy one?

Maybe not.

In responding to my request for their take on messiness, a surprising number of people wrote in support of the concept.  As sample of their thoughts:

“Wouldn’t feel alive without it . . . Never assume a messy room or situation is without clarity.”. . . “Shows intelligence and perhaps indicates time is best spent not sweating small stuff like over-organization.”. . . “My time is better spent on things I find more important.  I would rather be with people I love than cleaning.”. . .  “I worry more about my neighbors losing their home to an unjust foreclosure than whether there are weeds in the lawn-strip we share.”. . . “When I procrastinate cleaning, it’s because I’ve decided that what I’m doing now is better than the satisfaction of a clean room later. Why clean when you can play?”. . . “Messiness offers the visitor an ‘archeological dig’ of sorts, a window into the lives of the residents of the home.” 

Huh?

Well, several people did seem to agree there are different types of messiness, or even note how a healthy messiness could easily morph into something not so healthy:

“What is mess to one person may not be to another.”. . . “There are two kinds of messiness. One has an uncomfortable, overly cluttered feel, and is off-putting. The other feels comfortable, welcoming, and is a reflection of the personalities and passions of the family members that reside there.”. . . “I think messiness can originate from different dynamics and that it can be useful or problematic depending on the particulars.”. . . “There indeed are degrees of messiness. I love the plaque in my office: ‘You can touch the dust, but please don’t write in it.’  We can tolerate a higher degree of mess when it’s just us than when there are others contributing to [it]!”. . . “After packing and getting ready to move, my thoughts are that messiness is a bad habit to be conquered. So it probably depends on where you are in your journey.”. . . “How messy is messy?  I think the guiding line is whether the messiness interferes with functioning. As in most things, I think moderation is the key.”

But, taken in their entirety, the responses in support of messiness definitely outnumbered those cautioning against it.

I think I’m beginning to understand why.

Like many people in today’s high-octane world, I live in a fairly constant bubble of low-grade anxiety.  My efforts to organize, straighten and regiment the different areas of my life are, I think, my attempt to ease this worry stream.  Knowing that everything not only has a place, but remains firmly fixed in it, assures me that life is predictable, orderly, known, and in this assurance I can relax, protected (or so I think) from the unexpected, the unpredictable.

The trouble is, sometimes I spend so much time cleaning and straightening that there is no time left to actually do something, to create new things rather than rearrange the ideas and objects I already have.  And, truthfully, I can see how the safety and security of a neat home or office (or life) is, flipped on its head, boring predictability that makes it hard for creativity and spontaneity to get a word in edgewise.

But most importantly, I’m beginning to see that the assurance of predictability I feel when I organize is only an illusion.  Life, at its core, is really unpredictable, and no amount of shoe cataloguing or desk de-cluttering will change that.

So I think I now understand what my playgroup friend meant all those years ago.  By asserting that she wanted her life to get a little messy, I think she was saying that she wanted to get to a place in her parenting, and in her life, where she could no longer be in perfect control, but would instead be open to the spontaneity, surprise and unexpected creativity that can result from a bit of messiness.  For her, the opposite of  “in control” was not “out of control,” but “open to the possibilities.”

Thanks to the input of my contributors, I see now that if I could just manage to allow myself to be a little messier, I might gain:

• The surprise and delight that can come from allowing the unpredictability of life some wiggle room.
• A home that reveals more about me than the fact that I am tidy.
• A chance to create something I couldn’t envision or predict.
• The blessing of free and unencumbered play.

“But,” my inner OCD voice protests, “Life is too unpredictable to just let it unfold.  Who knows what might happen if we let go of the reins and begin living messy?”

Exactly.