Member-only story
Wanna Know Why You Can’t Kondo?
because you aren’t Japanese!
The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up
This is the title of the book my friends keep referencing for me. I thought it was a load of crap but decided to schlep to the library and pick it up. Standing among neatly stacked books, I skimmed a book about achieving a neatly kept house.
The book, was not a complete load of crap, but did not resonate with me. It has worked for my friends but it didn’t work for me and this is why.
How could a single, Japanese woman, living in a tiny apartment offer any advice on how to tidy up. My chef mentor was a Japanese woman — I know how tidy and precise she was and I imagine Marie Kondo (the author) and Tameko Cowen (the chef) had a Japanese mindset that most Americans do not have. Mommason (Tameko) insisted that I do things precisely her way — we worked in a galley kitchen 8 feet by 4 feet. In that tiny space there was no room for anything to be out of place. The walk in cooler adjacent to our work space was much bigger and I would often escape into the frigid cold. Mommason tried her best to teach me the ways of her country but I was too American. She did teach me how to embrace and respect another culture and for that I am grateful.
