Hurricanes, Migraines, Decluttering of the Mind

Luckily, I don't suffer from migraines. I do suffer--as last week--from hurricanes. So far, hurricanes have caused me some property damage (Katrina), but mostly anxiety, discomfort, and boredom.

I've been thinking that the post-storm feeling (assuming you suffer mostly from boredom, rather than truly serious losses) is like what Joan Didion wrote many years ago about migraines. So I looked up what she had to say:

For when the pain recedes, ten or twelve hours later, everything goes with it, all the hidden resentments, all the vain anxieties. The migraine has acted as a circuit breaker, and the fuses have emerged intact.

In the long wait for power, Mr FS and I read and dozed. Now, Mr FS is doing a major overhaul of the cluttered garage and I am cleaning up various indoor spaces. A giant pile of reading material was donated to the library yesterday.

It does seem that a decluttering of the mind has to take place before any sort of physical decluttering. Do you find this to be true?