The Pantry That (Almost) Had it All

 

“How could she even tell?” my brother-in-law asked my husband.

The “she” was me. And the question was: how could she tell I had a party at your house when I was house-sitting?

Bob’s answer was right on. “This is Polly you’re talking about. One look inside the cabinet, and she knew: the glasses were all mixed up.”

You might call it OCD. Or you might just call it a very well-organized cabinet. Either way, Bob was right. I have a very particular way I organize dishes and glassware. Not just as a way to trap young brothers-in-law in their party schemes, but so that when I open a cabinet, I can quickly find what I need. It’s obvious where things go, and it’s peaceful, not chaotic. Dear brother-in-law’s chaos was a dead giveaway.

One of the selling points of our current house was the pantry. It’s not a walk-in pantry (that would be glorious) but more of a pantry cabinet: floor-to-ceiling cupboards with slide-out shelves and long doors. It was a luxury, and I couldn’t wait to get our things in it.

Typically, when you move into a space, it takes time to figure out how best to use and organize storage areas, and the pantry was no exception. I started out aligning all the canned goods and jars on a shelf and since it easily slid out, even the cans in the “way back” were visible. This came to a crashing halt—literally—when the shelf brackets gave way under the weight of all the cans and jars. One moment, I was basking in organizational bliss, and the next, I was buried under a mountain of garbanzo beans and pasta sauces.

That disaster turned into another opportunity to solve an organizing problem. Since the slide-out shelves apparently couldn’t handle the weight, the canned goods and jars went into another cabinet with sturdy, fixed shelves. I sorted and categorized them and put it all in bins that could slide out for easy access.

So that problem was solved, but there was still the pantry. It was “fine,” but I thought while I was at it, I might as well take it to the next level. I turned to the same place we all do when we need to get a vision: Pinterest. With just a few searches my feed exploded with pantry organization inspiration. I was bombarded with beautiful spaces with personality. Baskets, bins, totes, and tubs—all aligned and easily accessed. There was a style for every personality. I wanted in.

After some online shopping, I found what I thought would be the key to everything. A set of 16 BPA-free, plastic dry food canisters with lids, ideal for storing cereal, nuts, baking goods, spaghetti, and everything else. And because more of a good thing is probably better, I bought two sets. I mean, I have a lot of legumes in here.

When the day came to organize the pantry, I felt like an influencer myself. I decanted everything—nuts, pasta, rice, oatmeal, coconut flakes, panko bread crumbs, everything—into those sleek containers, popped on the lids, lined them up, and wow. No more distracting, messy packages. The canisters gleamed with serious, coordinated organization. I had made it. You can take the “after” photo now.

Then, life happened, which, as it turns out, is nothing like a photo shoot. You have to actually access and open the canisters to use the food inside them. The way I had them stacked meant that I sometimes had to move several of them out of the way to find the one I needed. This also meant that there was food in canisters that got buried and forgotten. Are these red lentils? Or red quinoa?

It wasn’t a total loss, but it was only a partial win. The canisters worked great for some things (spaghetti) but not for others (snacks). And those distracting, messy packages? It turns out they sometimes have directions I need.

It just wasn’t the life-transforming pantry makeover I’d imagined.

Now, the containers live on the pantry shelves alongside some things in the packages they came in. Some of the canisters I use for staple items I make all the time (like white rice), so I keep those in the front for easy access. And some, I’m embarrassed to say, probably need to be pulled out and the contents pitched because they are surely well past the expiration dates (another handy thing that comes with commercial packaging).

Sometimes, I open the pantry doors and get frustrated that it doesn’t look like the picture-perfect space I dreamed of and planned for. But then I have to take a step back (after I rearrange the boxes so that the labels all face the same way, of course) and remind myself that if my goal was a more organized and less chaotic cabinet, then I have achieved it, if imperfectly.

Is “imperfect” the enemy?

Some days, honestly, it feels that way. Life in the real world is imperfect, so very imperfect. All I have to do is scan through social media or news feeds to see it. Chaos is all around us, which sometimes drives me to try and find even small things that I can control, line up, and contain. The pantry seems like a place where I could make that happen. But even the most organized pantry doesn’t bring the peace I’m looking for. That can only come from God.

There’s a great quote in one of my favorite books, Searching for and Maintaining Peace, by Fr. Jacques Philippe, that I really need to print on labels and adhere to my pantry storage bins: “The measure of our interior peace will be that of our abandonment, consequently our detachment.”

Detachment for me doesn’t mean I’ll stop trying to make things orderly and less chaotic. It just means that I will need to work on making my heart less chaotic and letting go of perfectionism.

My identity isn’t in a perfectly organized pantry, but in knowing I’m already deeply loved by God—messy shelves and all.