It’s not “too” anything. It’s my “-ism.”

Here’s tonight’s rabbit hole: I wanted to write an article, but couldn’t settle on a topic.

I thought about earlier today how I was chatting with a man who’d been to Alaska. He was showing me pictures of it on his phone, pictures that were at the ready because he looks at them often.

I told him how I clear pictures off my phone periodically (saving them to my computer and backup hard drive, of course), but I keep an album of that 10-week trip out west that my dog and I took last year. I told him how I also have a collage wall of the trip in my bedroom.

So I thought about writing a how-to article about making an album on your phone where you keep favorite photos, favorite people (pets are people too), places, and memories, to revisit whenever you want or need to go there. But that’s not enough for an article. In fact, I just now gave you all you need to know.

Then I thought to expand it to creating visually pleasing spaces for yourself. That started to feel like an actual project, and that’s not in me tonight. I’m at a mean tractor trailer Splatus.

What did happen was I got a little lost on Pinterest, starting with “cozy corners,” digressing into canal houseboats and home alters, thinking I should photograph and feature my little alter, attempting to quickly dust it, then back into the Pinterest, and in all that, I discovered a decorating style called “maximalism.” You can go ahead and Google that one on your own. Or just look in my “Beautiful Rooms” board, which turns out to be an unknowing ode to maximalism that I’ve built for years.

It’s a style that tells Marie Kondo that she can take her empty space and plain white walls and shove them.

Not that I don’t believe in minimalism, and even long for it at times. But my minimalism would be living in a camper with walls covered in framed street art from my adventures, and you can bet your paisley bloomers those walls will be painted a bold color or even wallpapered in a busy pattern.

Neither is necessarily the right way to do things. Likewise, neither is wrong. Anyone who tells me my walls are too dark, or I have too many books really shouldn’t be saying anything is too anything. They can simple say it’s not to their taste.

And gosh, that’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it? To not be wrong? That your own -ism is just that … your own -ism. I won’t tell you where and how far to take this metaphor; I only hope that you see the metaphor where you ought to, to love yourself and whatever originalities you have as much as you should (which is a whole ton of a lot, by the way). And if Pinterest or Whatnot doesn’t yield an -ism word to name it? Make up your own word!

I have over two thousand books, and I’m not a hoarder. I’m a maximalist. That’s just one of my -isms that make me a cool person. And check out this beautiful collage wall…