I’m not against it, house cleaning; I
just am not very good at it, never thinking of the need until I can barely
breathe or company’s coming! I’d rather live in a clean place than a pig sty,
but I’ve been around a bit and know that standards of house cleaning vary
greatly from culture to culture, country to country, family to family, and for
me day to day. Sometimes I feel the need, other times I don’t even see the dust
or grime. I think of Quentin Crisp’s book The
Naked Civil Servant and take consolation that, as he claims, after
three months the dust doesn’t get deeper. It may be true, but then company is
coming and something has to be done.
House cleaning is not a favorite
task. Oh, I was trained to do it as a kid: to run the Electrolux and the
Johnson polisher, to do the dishes and take out the trash. I had to keep my
room neat, put away toys, return books to their proper places, and occasionally
run a dust cloth. Daily I made my bed although it was always an awkward task.
When I went to work at the family grocery store, I learned how most effectively
to use various kinds of brooms, how to dust and face shelves, how to mop and
wax floors, how to strip tile, and how to wash windows. Still, such tasks are
not my favorites.
During the past two weeks I’ve been
reading a book of Pawnee village life in the year 1876 (Gene Weltfish. The Lost Universe: Pawnee Life and Culture
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965). I was intrigued with the
housekeeping work their semi-nomadic life required. They’d leave their earthen
lodges for a month for the summer hunt. In their absence fleas would take over,
so an advance party would return and start cleaning. They’d smoke the places
out several times to chase away the vermin and deodorize. In one scene the
women who were preparing their house complained that the fleas that summer bit
worse than the bedbugs. I thought of Denver’s current plight with bedbugs and
my fear we might get them since I check out books from the public library.
Fears aside, my house cleaning seems quite simple compared with what these
folks endured.
Mom was a housekeeper who must have
marveled at the modern home she and dad built just before their wedding, a house
with a gas furnace, gas stove, and hot running water. There were no trees to
cut and logs to carry in, no cows to feed and milk, no chickens to feed, to get
eggs from, and to dress for dinner, no garden to tend and reap, no necessary
canning chores. I recall seeing her canning set, probably a wedding gift in
those days, packed away in a box in the basement. I often wondered how one used
such tools. Smart woman, she married a grocer! Harvesting was a simple call to
the store. And I’ve mentioned the Electrolux, the electric polisher, all that
modern stuff. But life was not especially a picnic once the children came
along. Besides house cleaning and feeding the flock, she modeled clothing at a
department store, taught Sunday school, eventually led PTA and Girl Scouts
meetings, organized an evening youth group at church, and reared five children.
She served as a committee person with the Kansas Prohibitionist Party, attended
meetings of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, supported the Kansas
Children’s Service League, and after my sister Christy got polio, worked hard
for the Kansas March of Dimes. She trained her kids to do any number of
cleaning tasks and like a sergeant held us to our work with expectations
softened with humor. Housekeeping was easy for her, a woman who worked
efficiently in everything she did.
I married a young woman whose mom
very self-consciously had trained her to become a housewife as well as a good
citizen and good church volunteer. Myrna buzzed around the house with ease
keeping things clean, cooking, and preparing for company. I made it my task to
support her work by not leaving messes, picking up after myself, and assisting
in house cleaning anytime I was asked. I’m sure I was completely spoiled.
Many years later I had my own place,
alone. I was fifty years old. I immediately smashed together living and dining
spaces in order to gain an art studio, a place I wouldn’t have to clean up
daily. I rarely entertained but rather read, wrote, studied, did art pieces and
occasionally had sex with a guest. Later, in Denver, I had even less space to
mind. I got a sweeper, set up my art studio in one room and my massage studio
in the other. The regular presence of clients for massage served as my impetus
to do house cleaning. I’m sure I wanted Mom and Myrna to be somehow proud of
me.
I so tend to get into the moment of
house cleaning, a moment that takes me deep into a corner, for instance, a
stain or some other single task I’ve been putting off and attend to it with
such intensity I lose track of time and the rest of the things I had originally
thought I’d accomplish in the next hour. It’s a hazard of my personality I
guess. Oh well, I’m really not a house cleaner although I do a number of things
in the large house where I now reside. But I miss my two-room apartment that I
could really keep up with. Ten rooms seems excessive to me these days. Oh for
the good old days, but that’s really just a jest. I’d hate to get with it farm
chores, fleas, and bedbugs. So I do what I need to do and let the rest of it
go, oh until company’s on its way.
© 12 Mar 2013
About the Author
Phillip Hoyle
lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In
general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two
years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now
focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE
program “Telling Your Story.”
He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com
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