Don't Let It Go

My ghosts are still up, and they’re not coming down until AFTER Thanksgiving. It’s how I roll. I want Halloween to hang around a few more weeks beyond October 31st. I want that silly-spooky vibe to last into November and not curl up and die like so many brown autumn leaves.

How quickly we get up our holiday decorations before the actual holiday but how much more quickly we tear them down and put them away again — even before said holiday has actually ended! Why?

Blame it on that friendly yet inflexible Teutonic obsession with neatness and organization that permeates this Land of 10,000 Lakes.

That’s right. It wasn’t the Norwegians or the Irish or the Poles. It was the Germans. The German immigrants were the ones who predominantly settled in Minnesota, then immediately imposed their own version of architectural order on this new frontier.

And by God, the layout of this new land was going to be neat AND functional AND orderly.

Clean, straight lines of streets defining and embracing orderly, functional town squares — that’s how it got started. Soon residents were expected to live in almost identical white houses that weren’t allowed to look dirty or sloppy. That meant continuously sweeping off their porches and front steps at least twice a day. That meant keeping the area surrounding their homes neat and uncluttered. The winter snows and autumn leaves might be falling, but keeping the walkways clean became the unwritten, unspoken expectation for all homeowners — even if company wasn’t coming that day.

Ah, the passive-aggressive intolerance of ethnic order and design!

Nothing seemed wrong with such neatness until it gave way to irrational fastidiousness. And of course, it did as time went by. There’s order and cleanliness, then there’s that anal-retentive obsession to vacuum leaves that have the misfortune to land on your driveway. Really, now. Vacuuming leaves? But I’ve seen it happen — more than once or twice, too. People in this state actually vacuum leaves outside their homes and feel good about their obsessive compulsive disorder. Enough, already!

This madness has to stop. Too many Minnesotans are messing with the time/space continuum by trying to reorganize and “declutter” the natural order of things. How sad. Even Martha Stewart herself finally realized there was no way to give Mother Nature a beauty makeover. So why do so many people here still keep trying to do just that? Why do so many Minnesotans keep trying to reorganize the natural order of things? Beats me.

No one seems to know, either, not even that dippy Heather Brown on ‘CCO’s “Good Question.”

So let’s stop trying so hard to be perfect. No, I’m not suggesting we all turn into hoarders. I’m not telling you to stop mowing your lawns or to stop shoveling your sidewalks. Or to start leaving old refrigerators and microwave ovens on your front lawns to celebrate National Appliance Month. I’m just advocating a major state chill-out.

Let’s just calm down. Let’s stop trying to declutter before the clutter has actually accumulated. Stop ripping down holiday decorations when the holiday is still in full swing. Don’t let it go — let it linger a few days or weeks more. Quit being neat just for the sake of neatness — just so you can keep telling everyone how damned organized you think you are.