Kitty Kondo

Blog

  • A Year End Release Ritual

    As the year closes, we invite you to join us in the annual Release Ritual. It is simple. On the final evening of December, gather in a quiet room with a cup of tea and one object you no longer need. Hold it. Thank it. Place it on the edge of a table.

    Then wait. Breathe. When the moment is right, let your cat decide. It may take a minute. It may take an hour. At some point, a paw will rise, and the object will go, and the room will be changed.

    The new year is a blank shelf. We hope you leave it that way, for at least four minutes, before something lands on it.

  • Studio Expansion: The Mantel Annex Opens

    We are pleased to announce a new wing of the Mantel Studio, built with generous support from the Friends of the Floor. The Mantel Annex contains six practice mantels at various heights, each lined with objects of moderate fragility and low sentimental value.

    Here apprentices will train in the art of the careful descent. A well placed paw can bring down a candlestick without disturbing the photograph beside it. This is called the Narrow Release, and it requires years to master.

    The Annex opens on November 3. Tours are by appointment. Please do not bring heirlooms, as we will be glad to meet them later, under better circumstances.

  • The Joy Audit: A Walkthrough

    Our most popular service is the Joy Audit, a one hour assessment of your home in which Master Oolong walks from room to room, pausing at each object. He does not speak. He looks. If he blinks slowly, the object sparks joy and is safe. If he stares, the object is under review. If he yawns, the object is already gone.

    At the end, you receive a report, written by Bao in careful pawprint. It lists each object, its rating, and a recommendation. Typical results include: lamp, keep. Vase, doubtful. Chair, sat on. Clock, fate unclear.

    The audit costs $29. A follow up audit is free if you are able to say what the clock was for.

  • Why We Never Return Objects To The Shelf

    A criticism we hear often: you remove the objects, but you do not put them back. This is correct. We do not put them back. To return an object to the shelf is to deny what has been learned.

    Consider the frog figurine. It once sat on a high shelf, proud and useless. After release, it lives on the floor, where it is discovered every few days by a bare foot. In this way, it serves a purpose. It teaches humility.

    If you must reshelve, we suggest waiting a season. Perhaps the object, by then, will have changed. Perhaps you will have. Perhaps it will still be under the sofa, in which case, leave it there with our blessing.

  • Case Study: The Desk With Seventeen Pens

    A client came to us with a desk bearing seventeen pens, nine sticky notes, a stapler, a rubber duck and a bowl of paper clips. She said she could not think. She said the desk felt loud.

    Master Oolong sat down in the chair, faced the desk, and was silent for a full quarter hour. Then he reached out and nudged the rubber duck. The duck fell. A small cry went up from the client. Then, one by one, the pens followed, the notes fluttered, the clips scattered.

    When it was over, the desk was clear. She sat down and wrote a single sentence on a blank sheet of paper. We are not allowed to say what it was, but she paid us in full, and sent a card.

  • We Fold Nothing: Our Policy On Laundry

    Many ask whether Kitty Kondo folds clothes. We do not. A folded shirt is a closed door. It conceals what it was and what it could become. We prefer the unfolded state, which is honest.

    Instead, we sit on the laundry. This is the highest form of tidying. A cat on a pile of clean clothes transforms them into a warm nest, and the shirt, the sock and the towel become one. They are no longer separate things. They are bedding.

    Clients are often confused when they return to find their drawers empty and their closet floor covered in a soft, shapeless heap. We assure them this is the final stage of order. We bill $65 for the sitting.

  • Pen Cup Liberation Day

    On the last Saturday of September we celebrate Pen Cup Liberation Day, a festival honoring the humble desk accessory and the multitudes it contains. Every pen in a pen cup is a promise. Most are dry. All must be freed.

    This year, 140 clients brought their pen cups to the Mantel Studio. We tipped each one, slowly, with a paw, and watched the pens roll across the wooden floor, a river of plastic and brass and dried ink. A child clapped. A man wept. A pencil, long forgotten, rolled under a cabinet and was not seen again.

    Next year we plan to expand the event to staplers. Master Oolong has already started to meditate on it.

  • Quarterly Report, In Haiku

    Revenue, third quarter. Bookings up by twelve percent / Clients bring more shelves.

    Costs, third quarter. Breakage insurance, high / Tuna covers it.

    Staff, third quarter. Two new apprentices hired / One has left. We miss her.

    Outlook, fourth quarter. Winter brings the holiday / Trees, baubles, and joy.

    The board has approved this report. The board, for the record, is a ceramic frog on a shelf. It is awaiting a release of its own, pending a vote. The vote is scheduled for the first quiet afternoon of November, and the frog has asked to be informed in advance, so that it may prepare a short statement, mostly about gratitude, and partly about the edge of the shelf.

  • A Day Of Mindful Knocking

    Once a year, our entire team takes part in a day of mindful knocking. We gather at dawn in the Mantel Studio. We sit in a circle. Master Oolong rings a small bell, and each of us is given a single object, which we hold in our attention for one hour.

    At the second bell, we release them. All at once. The sound is like a rain of small bells, and for a moment, nobody breathes. Then Bao sneezes, and the spell is broken.

    We spend the afternoon in conversation. We discuss what we released, and what we hope to release in the year ahead. This year the answers included a stapler, a trophy and, in Bao’s case, a sense of shame.

  • The Plant Question

    Plants are our most difficult clients. They are alive, they are rooted, and they have a way of looking at you. A houseplant on a windowsill is a quiet rebuke, and yet it cannot be ignored.

    We treat each plant with care. First, we ask if it wishes to relocate. It does not reply. Second, we move it a few inches to the left, to test its spirit. Third, if it holds, we leave it alone. If it falls, we tell the owner it was a sign.

    Of the 83 plants we have released, 71 survived the descent. The remaining 12 returned to the soil in a ceremonial manner, with a little help from the rug. We offer a special Plant Reposition for $55.