Cleaning

I spent my weekend in productive manual labor. Between the shop vac, the mop, the dust rags, and my lungs, GRUG, I carted about 20 pounds of accumulated dust out of the basement.

These are days I love to hate. Ugh, I might say, flopping down on the couch, ALL I did today was clean the basement. I didn’t get anything DONE. I ignored my children, neglected my mind, cooked hurriedly and without relish. I was indoors all afternoon under less-than-salubrious conditions. A life can get sucked into this sort of absorption, and all kinds of better priorities can get misplaced. I vaguely mourn the books unread, the lush and incisive paragraphs unwritten, the complex soups unsimmered.

Still. There is a higher dimension to this type of labor. The very little I know of Zen Buddhism reminds me that sweeping, scrubbing, and similar tasks are considered spiritual exercises. Maybe it’s metaphorical: tackling a minute corner of the world’s mess (even though all I really did was rearrange it, sending the dust bucket by bucket into the flower beds outside and the trash out to the landfill on the prairie). Maybe it’s more direct: straighten and clean the exterior, and something internal straightens and settles down, too.

All I know for sure is that there are few things in life as satisfying as an object cleaned (with the exception of objects constructed, an activity that I engage in far less frequently and with much more mixed results). Yesterday morning when I finished up my coffee, the basement was a toxic mess of 40-year-old cobwebs, drywall remnants, sawdust, reverse drain residue and lingering insulation fibers. By the time I sat down to dinner, half was clean and usable. I spent my evening nipping over to the basement stairs to admire the well-wiped surfaces and dust-free toys. I went to bed feeling satisfied and tired.

The best thing of all about cleaning the basement, though? Once it's done, it'll be done for a good long time.

Spring Cleaning Take 2

When I was a kid, I wondered why people had spring cleaning. It seemed much more logical to have a fall cleaning, right before you go hunker down in your cabin for six months.

I think I have the answer: it's because after sitting around in the same sticky, grungy, dog-hair-laden digs for the longest months of the year, you will do ANYTHING, including scrub the kitchen floor with a toothbrush, to get rid of the GUNK.

Yep. I said scrub the kitchen floor with a toothbrush. I can't believe I did that, either. I was just washing up some dishes while I waited for Helen to be ready to host her dog party ("It's not just dogs, mom. It's kitties, too. And camels and zebras. But that's it.") One sink full of soapy water led to another, though, and pretty soon I was getting out the toothbrush.

The pathetic part is (or a pathetic part. I realize there might be more than one) that it actually doesn't look significantly different. A couple of corners are no longer coated in dog hair and dust, but the space below the stove is as frightening as ever. And then there's the big ragged gap where we tore out some crappy cabinets to make room for a fridge after the one that came with the house died. That still looks like crap.

I also vacuumed our bedroom, maybe the second time since we moved back in after the fall's reconstruction. Now, that space does look better. It looks like I feel after I take a shower after coming back from a week of camping. Like: whew.

Mindful, though, of Swistle's comment that it's harder to bear dirt once you've cleaned the house, I stopped at those two rooms. So now when I want a respite from the clutter and kidmania of the rest of the house, I can come back here, to the bedroom, and think ahhh. It's almost as good as cracking open a beer.