January 2018

Nearly 3 a.m. 

I can’t sleep. 

My eyes can’t stop looking at the hand-written labels on my dressing table.

Hair Brushes. Pearls. Indian Necklaces. Watches.

The perfectly labeled dressing table. Organized and engineered for the perfect dressing experience.

And tomorrow – it was to be destroyed. 

Taken apart. Labels ripped off. Jewelry, watches, brushes neatly divided between friends, family and charity.

My stomach queasy with anxiety, I turned over in bed wondering – what am I doing?

I began to reconsider my plans of leaving. For months on end I had looked forward to my exit. Over the last few weeks, I had given away shoes, dresses and even my gold to my sister. I tossed out books, manuals and disks. The rest were given to friends and charity. In anycase, I had been on the road for months – living out of a suitcase. So, I wasn’t too surprised by the ease with which I gave away my processions. 

I prided myself on being unmaterialistic. Untethered. But now…

Now that it came down to it, I hesitated. 

This dressing table was the wooden elephant in the room which gave me pause.

Because… it was more than a dressing table.

It was a symbol of space, sophistication and sisterhood. 

We custom built this dressing table. With my father as the in-between, we took our specific measurements to a woodshop in Karama, Dubai.  

When it arrived, I spent hours organizing, rearranging, labelling and categorizing. It was a work of art. Just like a well archived library or warehouse, anyone could find anything within a matter of seconds. If you were looking for something as tiny as bobby pins, safety pins or spare contact lenses – it was all accounted for on neat-handwritten white ink on brown labels (I had gone to a special crafts store to find the shade of brown closest to the mahogany chocolate dressing table).

 And now, it was to be destroyed.

*

In the dark of the night, I played back all the moments the women of the house shared in front of this dressing table.

It was at this dress I sat shoulder to shoulder with Rhea (my sister). Every. Single. Morning.  Together, blinking away sleep, we put on our make-up, laughing, plotting and getting ready for the day. Sitting at the dressing table with her was a daily ritual. It was a brief moment of stillness before our corporate jobs and busy lives got our attention.

It was at that dressing table, I learned just how to apply under-eye concealer on my mother’s aging skin which was tougher and more pigmented. I learned how to straighten and style my mother’s thinning hair differently. The dressing table was a point of bonding and shifting of the parent-child grooming relationship.

It was as this dressing table, I watched Clea, my other sister get dressed before she walked down the aisle and said ‘I do’. She gently tugged at her eyelids as she masterfully slid a black gel pencil around her beautiful almond-shaped eyes. Her hair was professionally curled and coiffed. She was going to be married…but for now, here she was. Wearing my nightie, sitting at the dressing table, preparing for her wedding. 

And now – after everything, after all the reorganizations, the memories, the inventory and the labels – it was all going.

*

Why was this stupid dressing table making it so hard for me?

Was I just losing a dressing table? Or was there something more at play here? That dressing table, the neat organization, the rituals, the memories – it was an anchor point. Was I losing a piece of wood? Or my ability to organize, to prune, to be grounded and to take pleasure in the artistry of life? Was losing years of feminine wisdom manifested through this dressing table in rituals of adornment and grooming? 

It certainly felt like it. 

But that isn’t the truth.

What I’ve since learned is I wasn’t organized, grounded and centered because of my dressing table.

Rather – my dressing table was organized because I was!

*

Fast forward to July 2019

90 minutes ago, I moved into a room in Penestanan, Bali. 

I’m going to be here for 2 weeks and already everything has a place. Motorbike helmets on the shelf by the door. Room and bike keys in the bowl to its left.

I wipe a quick arm across the table to create my workspace – laptop, books and chargers. I prop my swimsuit, goggles and flippers closer to the bathroom where I can leave them to dry or snatch them before I go off.

In the bathroom, my toiletries no longer need labels. Dental care at the forefront. Behind it, coconut oil for skin care. Shampoos and conditioner go straight to the shower.

Within minutes I’ve set-up a perfectly organized living space. A space I can work, sleep, breathe, exercise, meditate and rest in.

How am I able to neatly set-up and organize my living spaces so well? Part of it is frequency. I’ve been living a nomadic life for a few years. Across Europe, North America and Asia, I’ve lived grounded, productive and centered lives SANS a giant wooden dressing table. 

What I now realize is that creating, organizing and maintaining that dressing table GAVE ME THE SKILLS I needed to be able to effectively sort and organize living spaces with limited resources. This is a crucial skill which is pivotal to one’s sense of self, peace and especially productivity. I didn’t lose the skill to organize and groom myself by leaving my dressing table — in fact I’ve strengthened it.  

*

WE own our stuff and not the other way around.

I’ve thought about that moment of leaving the dressing table a lot. This dressing table – which I created for my own convenience – then turned into my handcuffs. This is the danger of materialism.

As it is often said by minimalists – 

We forget that WE own our stuff and not the other way around.

The things we have in our life are indeed beautiful, precious and worthy of our care and respect. And at the same time, when we are out of balance with our perspective, the things we own can become our ball and chain. 

A beautifully organized, stocked, labelled dressing table – is a wonderful thing.

But no matter how wonderful it may be – it shouldn’t be the reason to stop you from taking a huge leap, a huge risk towards the unknown. Towards something that might spark joy for you. That might bring about this feeling of unending marvel. Only it does. 

How many times do we think – well, it took me so long to move in and get this sorted, get this team up and running. I can’t. I can’t leave this job, this relationship, this house, this dressing table?

When comfort trumps all – what inertia do we inadvertently inspire within our otherwise wild spirits? And – when we live our supposedly comfortable stuff – how quickly does the pursuit of “stuff” overtake our need for the stuff? Nefarious capitalism convinces us we need more, more, more. Too often, we get sucked in. Buying more, keeping more and protecting our more. We can’t let go of our ‘MORE’. 

And even when we try to release our own ‘MORE’ – how does our stuff imprison us? We try to hold on to the way things were afraid of the unknown. Afraid of a life with less.  

We forget that impermanence, change and dissolution is the only guarantee.

Change. Change. Change.

Annica. Annica. Annica.

*Disclaimer – It is worth noting that this dressing table was making me reconsider leaving the city I had lived in for close to three decades. My body, spirit and soul were screaming for a change.

Some of us leave too quickly. We’re constantly leaving homes, cities, relationships, jobs. If you are one of these people – this article does not apply to you. You might actually need to invest in a really well-organized dressing table. Get in touch – I’ll share mind-numbingly dull/fascinating organization ideas with you.