Cleanliness is Next to Godliness
I HATE cleaning.
I DESPISE cleaning.
In fact, when I see homes I'd like to move into, or spend sometime into, the first thing I check for is how much cleaning I'd actually have to do and how often I'd have to do it.
BUT
I enjoy cleanliness.
There is a lingering sense of hipocrisy in the superposition of these premises.
I'd like to step on spotless floors with my socks. I'd like to wear white socks around my house and have them still be white by the time I take them off at night. I'd like to feel comfortable enough to sit on the bathroom floor and play boats with my son while we shower together. I'd like to breathe comfortably in the kitchen without worrying for the not so nice fumes that sometimes remain after a long day of intense cooking.
BUT
I'm a working mom, a stay-home mom, and, by the end of the day, a very tired mom. I like writing fiction, writing non fiction, painting, drawing and enjoying time in the garden; I even long for the eventual youtube spiral of useless video to easy my mind. I have a husband who needs attention, and a family who likes to talk over the phone, and, overall, I feel lazy when it comes to touching humid stuff to clean. Humid is not fun.
BUT
I know I could if I tried. I know I'd go through my little cleaning hell with clenched teeth and it will be awful and painful and I'll be pissy and I'd cuss at everyone around me for two hours, but it'd be done. And then it'd be the same for two or three days in a row, and then it'd become a habit and I wouldn't be able to live without it. Then I'd probably arrive at friend's houses and clean my way in because I wouldn't be able to stand any visible signs of dust.
BUT
I don't want to.
And this is just a rant to find alike minds and kindred spirits. And maybe, just maybe, we could help each other.
Because I do believe there is a spiritual component to cleanliness. I do believe the home and the mind are one, and this pet peeve of mine is something that must be faced.
MAYBE
Dealing with humid cloths and touching them with my bare hands is not so... bad? icky? terrible? Maybe, just maybe, it'll pass like a kidney stone.
MAYBE
Once everything becomes a few degrees cleaner on a daily basis I could find new faces of myself that had been buried under piles of dust and dead cells and cat fur.
MAYBE
With some practice and training it'll be easier and easier as days go by and the house will be more beautiful with less effort, and will feel cozy and homey and will attract friends and family to come for a nice cup of coffee every afternoon.
MAYBE
I haven't been doing my best.
MAYBE
I should.
Have a good day, wherever you are :o)
- Image credits: Studio Ghibli, the first one from Howl's Moving Castle, the second one from Kiki's Delivery Service.
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I gotta think about my girlfriend who feels the same way you do. When she was visiting from the States two years ago, she drove her hand over my picture frames and had dusty fingers. She made a quiet "ts ts ts ts" and I knew that my apartment didn't stand up to her eyes. I used to feel like a little child and would have resented her. Today I know that she doesn't come out of her skin, but basically feels comfortable with me, because it's not her four walls and the filthy corners of mine don't harm our time together.
I also love to walk on the floor with clean socks just like you and enjoy the beautiful pure smell that a cleaned home has to offer. I am also with you when I am angry that I clean up the dirt here and have a standard that my son will not have for a long time yet.
Yes, there is indeed something spiritual about cleaning. To experience this daily routine as an act with and on oneself is so much better than to grieve and be bored, that the plates and the clothes and the furniture are always waiting for a new cleaning. These things that have to be done, that are work and sweat, perhaps they are like the harvest that had to be reaped at all times and if you didn't, you had nothing to eat.
If I imagine that there is nothing left to tidy up, throw away, wipe and put away, it would be like living in a catalogue that offers "beautiful living". How bored, exalted living room ladies with painted lips and waxy faces, wrinkleless and flawless we would then sit in this environment that radiated lifelessness in eternal perfection.
I don't like to visit people where one is afraid to touch a thing as it lacks coziness and the warm feeling of entering a non perfect home. I feel like a troublemaker in a still life.
I do like visit clean homes where I don't have to be afraid that a disgusting insect will run over my feet and something sticky will catch on me.
:)
I like how you created this text and the duality in it.