I sometimes dream of the Organised People. They exist in my mind like shining beacons of humanity. They know where everything is. They make lists. They have special drawers for special items. They can lay their hands on utility bills and proofs of identity and matching pairs of socks.
They don’t miss messages and not see emails. They have schedules and excellent time management. I want them to come and live in my house and teach me.
I have spent many minutes over the last few days losing things: keys, my credit card, time, my wits. I got a call this afternoon about a photograph that was needed by a magazine. It was for HorseBack UK and the one we had sent did not have enough pixels. I cursed the pixels, muttering like an old colonel complaining about the young people of today. It took me half an hour to track down the original. I had to wade through thousands and thousands of pictures which, for some reason, I can’t bear to chuck. There were pages with forty different snaps of the red mare, and I could not decide which ones I could let go of. (I have sometimes gone through old pictures and videos with a ruthless, slashing efficiency. And then, two days later, I desperately want a particular photograph and discover I have deleted it. So now I am gun-shy.)
I’m so good at talking to my young students about systems. They get in panics about their essays and I talk them through the process, as if I am, secretly, one of the Organised People. But then I go into the kitchen and discover a packet of green lentils which passed their sell-by date in 2017.
I used to think all this was faintly charming. I was a creative, for goodness’ sake. I did not keep regular hours or having filing cabinets or make boring lists. I just let my imagination run.
But now I’m tired of it. It has no charm. It’s dull and annoying. I’d like, at last, a filing system and a sock drawer and the ability to lay my hands on my car key without having to retrace my steps and work out where I went last and spend precious minutes rummaging in every single pocket. (Most of which are filled with crumbling horse nuts.)
Someone, somewhere must know how to do the practicalities of life. The Organised People cannot only be a dream in my head.
PS. The good news is that I went to the feed store and got delicious things for the mares and I wrote a thousand words and someone started a bonfire in the woods. I did have to go and check that it was all safe and sensible, but the bonfire man has years of experience and knows exactly where to place it so that it will not cause a conflagration. I suspect he might be one of the Organised People. So we had a merry chat about burning old, dead trees and then I took a picture of his creation. It cheered me up as the rain lashed down.