House Cleaning by Ricky

          I really do not like or enjoy cleaning my house.  Even as an irresponsible teen, I would vacuum the carpet but not dust.  I would promise to wash the dishes and then not do it, until I needed clean dishes.  When my stepfather finally fixed the built-in dishwasher, the dishes got done daily.  Go figure, because I still did not like to do it.  I kept my bedroom neat enough and I washed all my own clothes and often those of the twins, my brother and sister.  However, I never liked to do house work let alone house cleaning (does anyone?).

          Another type of “house” cleaning also exists which, as a teen, I never conscientiously enjoyed either.  I did not even know I was doing it until much later in life.  Now that I am physically grown up and psychologically aging, albeit slowly, I realize that I am cleaning my “house” rather less often than before.  I am referring to having a “clean” mind but not entirely in the religious sense.  It is important to take out the trash, cobwebs, dust, and litter that accumulated over the years and “open the windows” to fresh information that can improve my ability to arrive at more accurate responses and behaviors to my environment or situations.

          The old cliché states, “You can’t teach old dogs new tricks.”  Well, people are not dogs and those who still have undamaged minds are quite capable of learning, or more accurately, updating their understanding of any issue – except math in my case.  I am constantly acquiring new information and insights into any subject or item that attracts my attention or curiosity.  Some would say that means I am just easily distracted.  I try to keep my mind sponge-like and fascinated with the wind of new information passing between my ears, blowing out the waste.  With any luck, some of it even stays inside my head, becoming the latest tapestry decorating the space where I actually reside and entertain my guests.

© 1 April 2013 

About the Author 

  

 I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach.  Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966.  After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11-2001 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010.   I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.