Week 1, Day 6: Accessories

Donna Joy

I love yellow. It’s the color of sunshine and joy and Amanda Gorman’s coat when she read “The Hill We Climb” at the 2021 Inauguration ceremony. I have 2 pairs of yellow sneakers, a pair of yellow Doc Martens and no less than 4 yellow purses. 

I didn’t intend to have 4 yellow purses. I had one yellow purse. It was small and round and didn’t fit much beyond my phone and keys and then I got a new, slightly bigger, phone and it didn’t even fit that. So, I needed a slightly bigger, but still very small, yellow purse. Oh, but when I sing places, I usually read music off my iPad, so I needed another purse that was big enough to fit my iPad. Enter yellow purse number 3. I think number 4 was mainly for the bow. I’m not even a bow person, in general. But on a yellow purse? Well, apparently, I’m a yellow bow on a yellow purse person. 

So now I have four yellow purses. Or I did, this morning. As I went through my accessories, I thought about why I had accumulated those four. Stuff begets stuff. The little round yellow purse was fine…until I bought more stuff and needed a bigger vessel. 

It’s overly simplistic, sure, but in that moment, that yellow purse was the perfect metaphor for how unchecked stuff snowballs. Everything I buy needs a space. And maintenance. And upkeep. and often accessories. which then requires a bigger space, which then needs more…..and on and on…until you have 4 yellow purses.

Challenge Week 1, Day 5

Donna Joy



Yesterday I went through a trunk in my room storing clothes that are too small for me. As I pulled each item out, I thought about it. Was I holding onto that dress because I really liked it, or because I really like the memory of the amazing backyard bridal shower my step-sister threw? Do I like this sweater, or just that fabulous restaurant where I wore it? Do I really need to hold on to these?

I kept a few things – a few fancy dresses I wasn’t ready to part with, a few summer dresses I’ll revisit as the weather gets warmer.  Between that purge and the few days before, I piled up 5 garbage bags for donation and another of trash. 

It felt a little horrifying to see. It felt more horrifying to walk back and see everything still full. A few things moved from the drawers to the closet to make room for specialty things like bathing suits and painting clothes in the dresser.  There’s still some coats in the coat closet. Still plenty of clothes in my closet and drawers. Still jewelry in my jewelry drawer after decluttering today and I’m sure there will still be shoes, purses, hats and headbands tomorrow after I review my accessories. 

But when I walked into my room for something today, it felt lighter.

I didn’t place it at first. It just kept catching me. Like catching a breath. 

And that’s what it was. 

Room to breathe. 

It’s not just that my closet and drawers reflect what I really like, the items in them also have space to breathe, not straining and stressing against their spaces. And so do I. 

Challenge Week 1, Day 3: Dressers

Donna Joy

One rule I made up for myself while going through my clothes is that I have to try on every.single.thing. Even if I’m pretty sure I don’t want to keep it, I’m trying it on. Ok, not holey socks, but pretty much everything else. By forcing myself to do this, I’m discovering a couple things. First, it takes FOREVER. It’s kind of painful, which helps me realize the size of this project. It also helps me be real about how much stuff I have. It helps me be real in other ways, too. Trying on the clothes I’m not sure I like forces me to think about why I got them in the first place. Did I purchase it online without really looking at the size guide? Did I somehow think I would magically stop feeling strangled by things around my neck every time I bought those crew neck shirts? I’m sensing a pattern that I just don’t look good in brown.  Forcing myself to go through the tedium of trying everything on sets a reminder in my brain that will (hopefully) help me not make those mistakes again, 

 Trying on the things I’m sure I want to keep confirms if that’s true. And sometimes it doesn’t. One of the things in my donate pile is a sweater I have worn constantly this past year. I put it on, looked in the mirror and decided, nope, you’re free to go. And if the item I’m trying on stays, I know I have it. I know I like it. I know it fits. Some things I don’t just try on – I make myself try it on as an outfit. Otherwise, that little defensive voice in my head says, “Oh, but you need this to go with that cute gray skirt.” Ok, voice, fine. Let’s try it on with the cute gray skirt. If it looks good, I have an outfit I know I like. If not, I have no qualms about adding it to the donate pile. Either way, it’s dealt with. Dana K. White, a decluttering blogger and speaker says, “Part of what you’re doing in decluttering is clearing the vagueness. One of the best perks of decluttering is awareness of what you have.” 

I love that. I spent a large portion of the last two days decluttering my clothes. But now, I know exactly what I have and where it is. And now, if I walk into Target and see a sale on long cardigans, I know I have a shelf in my closet with plenty of long cardigans. I don’t need another. 

Challenge Week 1, Day 2: Hanging Clothes

Donna Joy

Hanging clothes. Here we go. My process: remove all hanging clothes from the closet. Check the laundry for any other hanging clothes. Remember the coffee in the microwave. Remember my coats that hang in the coat closet. Remember the coats I stashed in my son’s closet when he went away to college. Throw all hanging clothes, including coats, on a pile on the bed. Stare at it while drinking coffee. Have an emotional moment. 

I went through a period of time where someone else made most of my fashion choices for me. Later in life, I ditched most of my conservative corporate wardrobe, experimented with a bright red pixie cut and filled my closet with uber feminine florals, bright colorful shoes and funky bags.  During that time, I put on a couple couple dozen pounds. Then the pandemic hit and I realized how much I LOVE leggings and tunics and bought a couple of each from amazon that are now forever in the wash or on my bod. I’ve let go of some of the things from each of my previous stages, but my closet and stashed bins are a mishmash of many different seasons of my life. 

The questions I’ve been asking about what’s “real” may seem silly and overly dramatic for a closet, but for me, they’re equally challenging and cathartic:  How do I feel when I open my closet? Stressed at finding something that fits me and, well, fits me?

Why did I really buy this? Why am I really keeping this? These will likely be harder when I tackle my trunk of, uh, “outgrown” clothes this weekend. Today I’m focusing on picking up each item and deciding if it has a place in my life right now. I want to open my closet and grab clothes that I can wear now, that I WANT to wear now, without digging through clutter that makes decisions harder and weighs me down. 

Challenge Week 1, Day 1

Donna Joy

OK, so I’ve made the decision to look at my house and stuff through this season of Lent, using the lens of “real” by asking questions like:

How do I really feel when I step into this space?
Why did I really buy this?
Why am I really keeping this?
What image did I really hope this would project about me?

But how? Now what? Now I actually have to DO something. 

There are about six weeks until Holy Week, so I’ve chosen six general areas to examine – categories where I know I have stuff hidden away that I want to address (read: really don’t want to address):

-What do I wear?
-How do I eat?
-What activities do I engage in? 
-What do I stock up on?
-What do I store with no current purpose?
-What memories am I holding onto?

I’ve decided against room-based categories because I don’t necessarily keep all like things together in the same room and I don’t want to give myself the out of not addressing something just because it’s not in the room I’m focused on. 

I’m going to start with “What do I wear” for a couple reasons. First, I think we all have clothes. Second, I’m writing at a desk in my bedroom, so clothes are pretty much right.in.my.face. Third, clothes are really easy. and they’re really hard. Getting rid of a pair of socks with holes in it can be zero effort, but clothes can also be weirdly emotional, right? So, whether you respond best to starting a project with the easy, embracing the snowball effect (like this), or respond best to starting your day by eating a frog (concept dubiously assigned to Mark Twain here), clothes are both.

For me, I respond best by having something else to do. For all you personality test junkies, I’m a Myers-Briggs ENFP and the most accurate thing I’ve ever read about ENFP’s is that it is amazing what we’re capable of accomplishing…..when we’re supposed to be doing something else.

Like right now. 

Perhaps I need to stop writing about decluttering what I wear and go face my closet. My holey socks are waiting.

Check in on Facebook and Instagram throughout the week, I’ll be posting some photos of actually decluttering the things I wear. 

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

Donna Joy

“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

Thousands of years ago in Jerusalem, the crowds were so excited about Jesus’ arrival in town, they welcomed him with the ancient equivalent of rolling out the red carpet for the arrival of a star to a world premiere. Except the red carpet was made up of the coats they threw down (like, from right off their backs) and the branches they ripped off the closest trees (likely palms). They gave up their cloaks and branches and shouts of praise in celebration of the famed prophet and healer arriving in their city. It was loud, it was joy filled, it was intoxicating. And then it was gone. 

In many traditional church observances, the palms used for Palm Sunday celebrations are burned and the ashes sit untouched for nearly a year. Then, on Ash Wednesday, the ashes are mixed with oil and become not something we give, like the coats and branches and shouts of praise, but something we receive. With the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday, the bearer takes on humility and mortality, all that’s left of the celebration.

The palm branches were the crowds, the social following. Loud, lavish, brash and sure.

The ashes are the quiet reflection. Intimate, personal and humble.

In an Ash Wednesday service, as the ashes are crossed on the forehead, the imposer often pronounces, “remember, you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

I am from dust.

I am returning to dust.

Secular sciences and Biblical accounts all reference life created out of dust. Dust was the medium used to create all of life. Dust was the medium used to heal. God mixed his breath with dust and formed humans. Jesus mixed his spit with dust and created sight for a blind man.

God enters and the dust is no longer dust.

God enters and the dust becomes the very medium of life and sight. The transformation from dust and to dust is not limited to just our literal birth and death, it is found in every season of our lives. In every season there are cycles of creation, dust, waiting and re-creation.

“Remember, you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

Today I’m trying to just sit and allow myself space to wonder at the constancy of the cycle, and the impermanence of the things. Everything is made from dust and everything turns to dust. There is grace and freedom in knowing both of those are true – that everything we own, everything on earth that we hold on to, will turn to dust. And re-creation comes out of dust.  

And yet here I am, storing up letters from 30 years ago, holding on to clothes from 20 pounds ago, and installing a shelf for a pile of high heels I can barely remember wearing. As though holding on to those things keeps the person I was, or I wanted to be, or I want to be, real. Maybe I need to put down some of those palm branches and coats (literally…do I need a dozen coats?) and instead, sit with the dust. Remembering the palms they once represented, and receiving the ashes. Laying down the loud, lavish and sure, receiving the personal, intimate and humble.

This is what I want. Or at least this is what I want to want.

It’s not about losing. It’s not even about less. It’s about releasing my grip on what I don’t need in this season, allowing it turn to ash so I can sit in humility, mortality and intimacy. Prepared to receive what’s next. 

Ashes to ashes…

Ash Wednesday

Donna Joy

I didn’t grow up in a tradition that embraced Lent. As I’ve explored the concept in recent years, I’ve fallen in love with Ash Wednesday and the Lenten season. Ash Wednesday was the last special service I attended BC (Before COVID). The pastor spoke that night with vulnerability, literally removing her traditional robes, jewelry, shoes, and even her makeup, during her transparent, moving message about façades. 

Towards the end of the service that night, the pastor, still barefoot and smelling lightly of her makeup removal cloth, dipped her finger in the oiled ashes and crossed my forehead with it. “Remember, you are dust and to dust you shall return.” 

That was the first time I received ashes.

It was personal. It was intimate. It was tangible. It was everything my faith was struggling to be.

Within a few weeks of that experience, COVID-19 became a household term and the whole world changed. My jobs, and interacting in person with people regularly, shut down. My classes went online. More than one class came and went without me ever seeing or hearing a word from the professor or other students outside of posted assignments. Church shrunk to a face on a laptop screen and I shrunk from worshiper and interactor to audience and commentator. Because of COVID and other circumstances, I increasingly find myself missing personal, intimate and tangible.

It’s almost the season of Lent again. When I turned the calendar this week and saw Ash Wednesday, I was filled with longing for the night I spent bearing those ashes. More than just a night in a sanctuary, I am longing for the “real” that the Pastor spoke of. I am tired of façades, tired of being burned by hypocrisy (my own and others), and I’m craving real. Maybe you are, too.

In one of my first experiences with Lent, I accepted a challenge to only eat unprocessed foods for a Lenten fast. I hated it. Every part of it. At the end, I excitedly went for some random junk food I’d been looking forward to, and it tasted like crap. I had developed a taste for real and now nothing else would satisfy.

Many of us are not attending in-person services this year, whether due to COVID-related issues, disenchantment with the church, a faith deconstruction process, or any number of other reasons. Despite all my issues with attending, not attending has left a void. 

I’m craving real. Real relationships, real faith, real hope, real joy, real me. Like the fast I did several years ago, I want to take a hard look at my life and address where I have been exchanging real for counterfeits, cheap replacements, and fakes. 

With my house continuing to be home, work, school and play for my family and I, I’ve decided to start with my house. I’ve done decluttering challenges before – even for Lent –  but the point of them has always been to just get rid of stuff. And the problem with just getting rid of stuff is…the stuff comes back. and it usually brings friends. This time my goal is not to get rid of a certain number of bags or boxes or pounds, but to take a look at my stuff through the lens of “REAL”:

How do I really feel when I step into this space?

Why did I really buy this?

Why am I really keeping this?

What image did I really hope this would project about me?

Along the way I’ll be posting weekly thoughts here on this blog, plus daily updates, challenges and ideas on my Instagram page “uncoveringreal.” Challenges are better with friends, so I hope you’ll join me. You can do the same challenge with your own stuff in your own space, or come up with your own challenge to do alongside mine – maybe you want to start with your finances, your social media accounts or your own unprocessed food challenge. Even if you want to just watch like a wallflower for awhile, I can’t wait to do this process with you!

-D