Satisfying the Urge to Organize

Is there something in the water?

Are the Valley’s ubiquitous cell phones bombarding us with subliminal messages?

Is it because of the rain?

Whatever the reason, everybody I know is frantically sorting, tossing, filing and carrying boxloads of unwanted stuff to the Salvation Army drop-off center, looking lustfully at paint chips and generally paring down and spiffing up.

This urge to simplify and nest seems to happen every year around this time. It’s as predictable as the arrival of bare-root roses at the garden center, as inevitable as the shock of the credit card statement that reveals how much you really spent over the holidays.

Hoping to make money off this annual compulsion to organize and prettify, local bookstores are featuring volumes devoted to the reform of people some actually refer to as messies. I don’t understand why an author would want to insult prospective buyers, but then I don’t know why anybody would buy a book aimed at dummies either, and obviously thousands do.

The literature of organization promises salvation to those who follow its simple tenets. Heaven, in the guise of being able to see the back wall of your closets, comes to those who first take everything out, discard everything they haven’t worn for a year, then put the remainder in one of three boxes--keep, toss and undecided. There is something so simple about this advice, so comforting, that you want to follow it even if it doesn’t work, like drinking hot water, honey and a shot of bourbon for a cold.

I don’t know why Organization 101 isn’t a routine part of the lore we transmit to our offspring. As soon as they reach the age of reason, we should add to our admonitions to floss daily and wash their hands, “and did you know that if you put a basket near the mail slot, you will never lose another bill as long as you live?”

In the midst of the Great New Year’s Cleanup, one word comes to mind with the force of revelation. That word is storage. Once you have decided which objects will remain in your world, you begin to dream of the perfect container to keep them in. Rubbermaid knows who you are, knows what you want and knows what you will do to get it.

All this came to mind in the parking lot of Bed Bath & Beyond in Studio City. Normally, I would be in linens, salivating over 100% cotton sheets. Instead I noticed Sheri Freedman transferring a couple of extremely attractive containers into the back seat of her car.

“That one’s for under the bed,” I said to my sister in storage of one shallow translucent box.

“Yes, and it’s stackable and has wheels,” Freedman replied, confident that I understood how desirable those features are.

Freedman said she, too, had recently been tackling drawer after drawer, cupboard after cupboard with seasonal ferocity. The storage pieces she had just bought were intended for one of her two daughters, who recently had a baby. Not long ago, Freedman had purchased similar containers and before she could mail them off had used them to stash her own domestic treasures.

Freedman has lived in her Laurel Canyon home for 37 years, and only recently decided to discard such emotion-laden items as the pup tents her girls, now in their 30s, had used as preteen campers. She plans to donate them to a local elementary school. But some things will never be thrown out, including a translucent box full of the girls’ baby clothes, some made by Freedman’s mother.

Inside the store, Eddie Ajamian was studying the shelves. He carried a handful of faux-wood hangers and a metal contraption that holds half a dozen pairs of trousers. At some level, I had always assumed the desire to order one’s universe was an estrogen thing. But Ajamian was evidence to the contrary.

The 42-year-old audio engineer said his recent desire to organize and upgrade was linked to his recent acquisition of a dog--a homeless Australian shepherd Ajamian named William. How does getting a dog make you want to shape up your environs? “It just jumbles everything,” he explained.

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Ajamian started his beautification project with his bathroom. A committed recycler, he went to Goodwill and bought as many pretty little ceramic containers as he could find. Now his dental floss and other necessities each has a place of its own.

“You wouldn’t believe what they do for your medicine cabinet,” he said.

Whenever he can, Ajamian does the socially and ecologically responsible thing by using biodegradable materials processed in responsible ways by people other than political prisoners.

“Don’t buy plastic,” he warned. “It wrecks the planet.”

Ajamian also applied some of the principles of feng shui--the ancient Chinese art of decorating--to the make-over of his 100-year-old house. The first thing he did was to turn his desk around so it no longer faces the wall. Why do that?

“It keeps you from getting stabbed in the back,” he said with a grin.

In recent weeks he has planted a ficus tree in his backyard, hung a plant in an awkward corner to counteract its negative energy and put bargain-priced tapestries on top of the piano, on several shelves and on the bathroom door. Ajamian found the transformational textiles at Pic N Save.

“I put one on top of a file cabinet, and it was unbelievable how it warmed it up,” he said.

But Ajamian’s proudest move involved his collection of herb teas and some thrift-shop Ball canning jars. He put each type of tea in a separate jar, tore the top off the package and put it into the jar to identify the tea, then tucked the appropriate tea bags behind each colorful label. He tightened the lids to keep the tea fresh, and now the jars are neatly lined up on the counter in his kitchen.

Trust someone who has tasted the heady pleasures of organization. Life doesn’t get much better than that.

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Spotlight appears every Friday. Patricia Ward Biederman can be reached at valley.news@latimes.com.