A few nights ago we had a short blackout. My mom pulled out a flashlight from a junk drawer. Days later, the flashlight was still sitting in the bathroom, where she last had it when the power went back on. I put it away this morning. This happens a lot. If she's looking at a book, it doesn't go back on a bookshelf when she's done. It sits on the couch cushion next to her and a pile of other discards grows around it until there's a big mess, which she "deals with" - only when it becomes inconvenient to her - by shoving it all in a bag or box.
When I first got here, I told her a story about a friend of mine from grad school. Jess is a little bit scattered, but organized in her own way. I would never have been able to borrow notes from her, for example, because they wouldn't have made any sense to me, but you could see that there was a structure present. She was hired to clean and organize the theatre department's prop storage the summer between our first and second year (I have an MA in Theatre Arts). Nobody was supervising her, because Jess is a hard worker. Late in the summer I got a call from Jess. She asked, "Santina, what playwright do you associate most with stoves?" What? Why? "Well, I've organized everything by the playwright I most associate it with; so, like, all the chairs are in the Ionesco room, because he wrote The Chairs." "Um, Jess..." I responded, "does Ward [the prop master] know you're using this...'system'?"
Ward was pretty pissed when he found out, but to Jess's credit, she knew were everything was right away for the next year. She took big piles of dusty props that were in no order and she sorted like with like - in a system that made sense to her - and put everything on shelves - in a system that made sense to her - and it was visibly much neater, and was easily accessible for her - because the system made sense to her. The point is that she did a lot of work, and she did use a system, it's just that when she graduated a year later nobody else could find anything in prop storage because the system only made sense in Jess's mind.
I shared this story with my mom soon after I returned home because I wanted to stress that I was there to help her do things in a way that made sense to her. I am a really good organizer, and my systems are more generally logical - other's tend to be able to find their way around a space that I've set up. However, I don't want to force my systems on my mom. I want the mess to be cleaned in a way that makes sense to her, so that she will be able to maintain it.
Sharing this story with my mom was a mistake. It has since been twisted; any time I move anything I am "imposing my system instead of letting her do it her way." But, no system is not a system. Jess did actual work, with a visually measurable impact, that created more space and made finding things easier (for her). My mom leaves things wherever they land till they are in the way, then she bags them up, shoves them in a corner, and re-buys things because she can't find the things she's already bought. This is not a system.
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