Clearing the Tangle Out of My Life

     Marie Kondo, the professional declutterer, would smile about all the clearing out I’ve accomplished since Covid has kept me homebound more than usual.     
     It started with our chopping down two arborvitae trees in our yard that died. After that I trimmed dead branches deep in an eight-foot-tall shrub; pruned scruffy undergrowth in a thirty-foot-tall blue spruce; and lobbed off thorny limbs from a Russian olive tree that threatened to reach out and grab me.     
     Then I moved indoors, culling shelves of books I’ve never read and never will (sorry, you bibliophiles); tossing decades of paperwork (sorry, you archivists); clearing out bric-a-brac (sorry, you sentimentalists); and donating clothes I never wear (you’re welcome, you fashionistas).     
     Someday my kids will thank me.     
     Everything looks cleaner. And what’s left “sparks joy” in me, as Kondo says our environment should. But I wonder if there’s more going on. Perhaps I’m clearing out the tangle in my life to make room for new growth.     
     Because if my surroundings are cluttered, my mind and soul are, too.