Clean Enough

I used to be obsessed with housework. I followed a specific program that told me which week to clean which room, what tasks to focus on, how to declutter my home so I could thereby declutter my life. It was a good program, in its defense, and I still fall back on it when I feel the need to recommit to putting things in order. But for the most part, I made the decision some time ago to choose fun over function. I realized life’s too short to spend a beautiful, sunny Saturday cleaning the house when there are mountains to climb, trails to travel and sights to see.

Sometimes this decision comes back to haunt me. Dust bunnies roll out from under the bed, doggie slime-prints shine starkly on the sliding glass door in the morning sun, and with a sinking feeling I realize that my furniture is way past passing the white glove test. I try to ignore it. That little voice inside my head says, “Why clean when it will only get dirty again?” (At which point, my mother’s little voice inside my head answers, “Then why eat when you will only get hungry again?” I have never won this battle.)

At one point, in the years B.T. (Before Tuition), I briefly hired a cleaning person once a month. She was thorough and fastidious and had the worst attitude of anyone I had ever met. I believe her anger and resentment fueled her passion for cleanliness. Unfortunately, it also fueled things like breaking knick-knacks and slamming the vacuum into the wall. I regrettably fired her, pleading poverty (which by that time was more or less true).

Then I found FlyLady. Hers was the system I mentioned above, and her philosophy matched mine – that it didn’t have to be done perfectly. She had a much more palatable name for the dreaded weekly task of house cleaning – Home Blessing – and I was able to delude myself with that image for many years before deciding that I would better bless myself – and thereby make my home a less fractious place to live – by grabbing a hiking stick every weekend instead of a vacuum.

So that brings me to today. Last night I became conscious in a sudden burst of awareness (well, actually it was one of those damn dusty tumbleweeds escaping from under the dresser) that the place needs a thorough cleaning … badly. Dirt never takes a holiday. It’s time to pull out the vacuum, the mop and the dust rag. Ready my arsenal of cleaning fluids in their varying levels of toxicity. Take down the curtains, wash the windows, clean in the cracks and corners, remove the winter buildup from the blades of the ceiling fans. Yes! That’s what we need to do! Hunker down! Scrub, scrub, scrub till everything is shiny and new. Today is the perfect day for it … Sunny. Warm. Spring-like. Invigorating.

The perfect day for a bike ride.

After all, the dust isn’t going anywhere. And tomorrow’s forecast calls for rain.

ENOUGH: Birthday Resolutions

Birthday Resolutions

I have a tradition of making birthday resolutions rather than New Year’s resolutions for the very simple reason that my birthday happens to fall in mid-spring when it is a helluva lot easier to make a fresh start than it is in the cold, miserable pit of winter.

This birthday, as I took my walk – on a nice, sunny spring day, thank you very much – I began to reflect on my age, as one often does on one’s birthday (which frequently makes one fall into murky existential gloom … but I digress). I recalled an article I read recently about reaching middle age and realizing you no longer have to live up to anyone else’s expectations or prove anything to anyone.* You know you’ll never fit back into the jeans you wore in high school. Never climb Mount Everest. Never become a rock star. And you’re okay with that because by now you know you are enough.

But enough is a versatile word. (Look at it for about 10 minutes and it doesn’t even look like a word anymore. Go ahead. Do it. You’ll see.) It can take the form of several parts of speech: adverb, pronoun, exclamation. And be defined in a number of ways: “as much or as many as required”; “to a moderate degree; fairly” or “used to express an impatient desire for the cessation of undesirable behavior or speech” – as in “Enough is enough!” and “I’ve had enough!” 

As I walked, I began to think of a whole lot of occasions when I’ve used the word “enough” … enough of them (see what I did there?) to very possibly provide the ingredients for an interesting series of blog posts.

·         Good enough. Wise enough. Old enough. Young enough. Tough enough. Pretty enough.

·         Had enough. Done enough. Worried enough. Cried enough.

·         Enough money. Enough work. Enough stuff. Enough is enough.

(By now you’ve no doubt noticed that the word “enough” no longer looks like a word, assuming you have not already gone through the exercise recommended above.)

So I decided to begin the “Enough” blog as this year’s birthday resolution. I invite you to join me on my journey as I examine the many aspects of “enough” in my life and hopefully encourage you to reflect on those same aspects of yours.

And if you get tired of reading, just say, “Enough,” go take a walk and reflect. Just watch out for that murky existential gloom.

*Here’s a link to a similar article, though this was written by a woman almost half my age … don’t I wish I’d had this insight at 30!