Email dated Sept 13th 2019:
“Dear Amy, I would like to hire your services as a personal organizational assistant after recently glossing over the highlights of a book authored by Marie Kondo, the most famous personal organizer in the world according to the publicly edited web site Wikipedia. The problem Amy, is that I have stuff literally everywhere. It may take some time to get organized, but if your patient, and willing to work with me I will pay upfront and cover all expenses.”
It was Amy’s first job as a professional organizer after dropping out of college mired in debt with little hope for a career. She had Googled jobs she could work from home and ‘Woman’s Day Magazine’ online suggested helpfully, “help people tidy and organize for fun and profit!”
Amy had a long list of entrepreneur attempts – attempts mind you, not failures, Amy refused to use the ‘F’ word — a person had to go through a lot of attempts right? What was the cliche? “Edison tried to electrocute an elephant a 1,000 times and on the 1,001 try he succeeded and then laughed in Tesla’s face”. Amy was no quitter and road tested each idea with equal (even if short lived) enthusiasm. Her career moves included ‘weed seller and grower’ (she rarely mentions that one and we don’t know why it didn’t work out, but something went really wrong…), a stint at selling high-end cosmetics from a catalog which had all her friends avoiding her, and lawn care but only if the people could provide all the equipment — but finally something had worked. She had posted on a Facebook Marketplace, “personal organizer!” and received a job offer which included a cash in advance payday.
He sounded rich and listed his occupation as a programmer from Seattle. Maybe he would be cute. Maybe he would have a nice car. Maybe this was the start to something great!
First thought: “what am I going to wear?” Amy hadn’t been shopping since the credit card maxed out a year or so ago.
Six weeks later she was a pro at her new job with her client August.
She stood in a brand new red coat and matching stylish scarf — super uncomfortable new shoes that looked amazing but pinched both little toes that would no doubt be blistered — she stood in the kind of tiny municipal airport taking it all in, she had made it, entrepreneurship. Who would have thought even 18 months ago that she would be completely dropped out of cosmetology and now be in an entirely different state with a client. Yup, she had the chops!
She stood gazing around a roomy lounge area that looked stuck in 1988, or what Amy imagined 1988 looked like since she was born in ’97 – and indeed Amy the hot off the press organizer could smell the lingering remains of cigarette smoke in the old multi-purpose carpet and wood paneling. A drop ceiling with florescent lights barely lit the room and there were no windows.
“Okay August” Amy said bravely, “where did you leave it?”
August looked around trying to recall. He spotted the dying porthos plant on a corner shelf that was yellow and barely a leaf left on it with items stashed behind it. August a South Korean programmer wearing skinny jeans in his early 20’s waved Amy over. He had found yet more items he needed to sort.
“Why would you keep that August? I mean, you left it at an airport.” Amy knew she shouldn’t say anything but this was the third odd stop that week and they just kept traveling. August shifted from foot to foot quietly unable to answer. She had embarrassed him she realized with a little sigh and made a mental note to adjust her exasperation level once again, August was very quiet and reserved which became worse if she talked too much in an aggressive manner.
Behind the plant August had left a gnome which had been painted over with a thick gluey house paint that had distorted the features. It was mostly glossy black but the DIY job had been rounded out by what looked like nail polish, unfortunately the nail polish did not have any opacity and didn’t show up against the black. The gnome hat was cracked. It looked like nuclear fallout gnome, or should not have been under the volcano when it blew gnome, Amy thought.
Amy stared at it shocked that August (or anyone else) had kept it, let alone stashed it behind a now dying plant in a windowless room in a nowhere airport. Now the hard part, trying to get August to throw the items into the trash.
Amy paused, maybe the plant could be saved, it just needed water and a location with some sunlight – and what if the gnome could be repainted…Amy put both items into her bag intending to relocate them later.
August had told her, “I have stuff everywhere” but now she was beginning to realize he meant: everywhere. Very literally everywhere.
Augusts’ initial correspondence had continued and Amy possibly in her excitement hadn’t made enough note of it, or asked the right questions:
“Sometimes Amy, I just am trying to work and I startle, and I think, OMG — you know what, I left my Walkman in the drop ceiling of a Circle K in a small town in Nebraska, or a box of my Mom’s old dishes in a storage container of a friend in Portland Maine, and when I recall what I’ve forgotten – oh I do startle and it’s just terrible. When I glanced over the Marie Kondo organizing book I realized I needed to get my life together. I have over the years left pieces of myself everywhere. I have taken off a year of steady employment to simply travel and become ‘recollected’ as I call it.”
But Amy had a realization herself, as they traveled from breathtakingly odd place (why, why August were you here? This is a dog grooming facility in Prescott Arizona…!) She had begun to experience August putting new unusual items in new unusual places. She may never be finished.
“Your organizing skills could be so helpful to me. I wake up at 3am and I think of my friends and my family. My home and my dog. I startle as slowly it dawns on me. I’m not even in Korea. My parents have passed away. There is no friendly tail wag, I am alone, no one. I’m in a bare apartment where I eat cereal for my evening meal. How much time has even passed? Why does my face look so worn and old in the mirror? Sometimes there is music in the dreams, but it’s sad. I think it’s a Korean song I knew as a child – I realize everything is changed now anyway. I couldn’t go home even if I wanted to. In my last dream I stood watching the sunset with my family, I snapped a photo that I wanted to keep, so beautiful, so sad at the same time, the final moment, the last moment we were together. We were all so happy.”
About ten days into travel Amy realized she couldn’t find her curling iron, fuzzy belt of her house coat, or ear drops. She wasn’t sure if she had left them somewhere — or if August ‘borrowed’ them to artfully plant them in some random spot.
Amy was a little sad there was no chemistry between her and August, she had high hopes right up until the time they met in person and she realized immediately there was less zilch electricity when their eyes met and the romance meter had remained at resolutely zero the entire travel trip. The trip, she decided, would have been a little more interesting with a romance angle.
Next up was South Korea and some international travel to retrieve yet more lost items, but Amy was beginning to doubt she had the solid metal of the great Marie Kondo for organizing. She felt like every time she left a place she was losing a little bit of herself and would startle looking in the mirror – how much time had passed? Where was August, had she seen him this week? Why was she in the hotel room with the ten story waterfall? Who would put a waterfall inside a building?! The humidity was insane! Time was weird, life was odd, she had lost so much now but tried to shut that out, tried not to think about it — but she had a feeling she should be somewhere else and that maybe she had lost something else, something really important… lost something she should be searching for if only she could remember.
