SPARKING JOY WITH MARIE KONDO. (2019) A NETFLIX SERIES REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
SPARKING JOY (WITH MARIE KONDO): 2019.
A NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS.
I’m coming late to the Marie
Kondo party, and I was shocked to find out that her bestselling book, THE
LIFE-CHANGING MAGIC OF TIDYING-UP, has actually been out since 2011. I only
heard of the diminutive Japanese organising consultant about two or three years
ago, when my daughter suddenly started packing her favourite childhood toys and
books into bin bags.
What are you doing, I asked her, not
unreasonably, I think.
I’m Marie Kondo-ing my
room, she said, still continuing to frantically bundle her stuff into bags.
She’s an expert on getting rid of clutter. She says I can only keep thirty books
in total, she added, at which point my eyebrows shot up and disappeared into
my hairline.
Thirty books? The cheek of
the woman! I keep thirty books on my nightstand in my to-be-read pile. I keep
thirty books in the bathroom to read while in the bath. I take thirty books
with me when I go on train or bus journeys or to the doctor’s or dentist’s,
anywhere I might be required to wait for a bit for my appointment. Thirty books?
That’s my idea of a gentle warm-up read. Thirty books? Pshaw. She’s not the
boss of me…
Just because I fiercely
disagree with her ‘thirty books’ policy, however, doesn’t actually mean that I
don’t find some of her practices and processes useful. Over the course of the
past three years, I’ve been decluttering my own home bit by bit anyway, and
there’s no denying the sense of satisfaction and lightness you feel when you
dump a bag of old clutter in the bin or take some old clothes that someone else
might use to charity.
The method Marie Kondo uses for
tidying up is her special patented KonMari method. You organise your home by
putting all items in the same category together and decide which ones you want
to keep and which to discard. Say, for example, you dump all your clothes on
the bed, then you go through them one by one, after first ‘greeting the space’ in
which you store them.
The garments that still ‘spark
joy,’ as the little Japanese powerhouse that is Marie Kondo puts it, are the
ones you keep. Anything that no longer ‘sparks joy,’ or doesn’t fit any more or
belongs to a time in your life you want to leave behind, is graciously thanked
for their years of faithful service, and then popped in the bin bag or the
charity bag. See? Simple.
You do the same with your
books- don’t get me started on the thirty books thing!- and your bric-a-brac,
your knick-knacks and your sentimental items. I had huge trouble with
sentimental items myself. As a woman, a daughter, a mother, a girlfriend, a
lover, I always thought you were meant to carry all your keepsakes and
forget-me-nots with you through life, like a giant millstone round your neck,
or like Homer pulling the giant rock behind him in the episode of THE
SIMPSONS about the Stone-Cutters.
I’ve gotten quite good
lately, partially thanks to Marie Kondo, at letting go of my memorabilia. Birthday
cards from old boyfriends, letters from friends and even old bills, which were
all mixed up with the souvenirs, all went in the bin. It felt so good to just
say goodbye and let go of them forever.
Also, I was one of these
women who thought that lightning would strike me dead if I threw out so much as
a scrap of paper given to me by my kids. Now, although I keep cards and
presents from them, I’ve learned to relinquish things like, say, a stuck-together
mouldy folder of drawings they did ten or twenty years ago. Just about. I’ve just
about learned to relinquish them. Sort of, lol.
Anyway, there are three
episodes in SPARKING JOY WITH MARIE KONDO, the cute little
Netflix series that was the follow-up to the immensely successful TIDYING UP
WITH MARIE KONDO (2019), which I intend to watch if it’s still on Netflix.
(PS, I also signed up to her newsletter via her website, and I’m now excited at the thought of receiving inspirational tidying-up tips from the guru who juggles marriage and three children with her massive worldwide organising franchise.
Talk about the fist of granite inside the velvet glove. You’d need balls of steel to be able to throw so much shit out without a pang. I’d say the little tidying-up pixie is as tough as most blokes, lol. I know I wouldn’t want to cross her…!)
In the first episode, Marie visits father and son, Jimmy and Logan, who run a plant nursery together that could use a little tenderness and some serious re-organising. By the end of the episode, Marie has not only advised them how to store all their bits and bobs so that they know where things are, but she’s also caused them to re-discover a book on peppers that’s very important to old Jimmy. How many times over the years has Jimmy accused people of stealing that self-same book, lol, and here it is now under a bunch of old crap…!
Jimmy’s daughter and Logan’s sister, Porter, comes to visit the newly tidied nursery, and the three of them realise that they’ve allowed life and other things to get in the way of their relationship with each other. They resolve to fix that right away. So, you see, tidying up your space can give you some clarity on the rest of your life as well!
In Episode Two, Marie helps a
lovely American woman called Joanna clean up her coffee shop, called The Palm,
and her home, which she shares with her handsome working-from-home husband,
Ben, and her young son, Julien. They all love each other dearly, but the
cluttered spaces and routines are stultifying the trio and keeping them from living
their best lives.
The look on Marie’s face when
she hears that little Julien sleeps on a mattress in his parents’ room, even
though he’s got a fantastic big bedroom of his own, is hilarious. That kid’s
ass is hauled right out of Momma and Poppa’s room, giving Joanna and Ben their
relationship back, and plonked firmly back in his own room. A place for
everything and everything in its place, as Marie herself might say, and that includes the young 'uns…!
Finally, Marie helps a single
mother and cancer survivor called Lorri to organise her home and also her
church, where she’s been a selfless volunteer for years. As some of the
extraneous clutter is removed from her life, Lorri gradually comes to realise
that, up till now, she’s left no time in her life for her own personal
development or a potential new romantic relationship after the painful split from her children's father.
Marie Kondo’s make-over frees Lorri up to have a relationship with herself first and foremost. She learns to put herself first for a change, and there probably isn’t a woman or mother alive who doesn’t need a bit of that. It’s so strange, yet uplifting, to realise how freed up you feel simply by giving your living space or workspace a good talking-to and the application of a roll of bin-bags. Have a bash at it. You might be surprised at the results.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
Her debut romantic fiction novel, 'THIRTEEN
STOPS,' is out now from Poolbeg Books:
https://www.amazon.com/Thirteen-Stops-Sandra-Harris-ebook/dp/B089DJMH64
The sequel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS LATER,’ is
out now from Poolbeg Books:
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