I Don't Know, by Phillip Hoyle

“I don’t know.” What a topic, so open. It reminds me of doubt, the inability to choose, even loss of memory. Not knowing was a common experience for me as a kid. I recall looking at souvenirs in an Estes Park shop one summer afternoon. I had money and wanted to buy something with it. I looked at animal figurines wondering which one to select. I didn’t know. Finally, I bought a bear. As an adult, I reasoned I did so because of its connection to Native American life and lore. I never regretted that choice and the bear turned out to be an interesting animal and somewhat a symbol for me.

I am quite aware of the problem of choice for late teens who may have vocational interests, talents, and potential. I certainly was one of those. Having been recruited for ministry, I watched that world carefully. I had many other interests as well but finally went with the church work. That choice was much more important than deciding between kinds of candy or cookies or figurines. I didn’t regret my ministerial choice or career even though I eventually left it. At age 50 I chose to get out of it having tired of the incessant meetings. I knew when to leave.

In other ways, I said, “I don’t know,” but when I did, I believe saying so might have been a dodge, a frustration, or sometimes the truth. Still, I think about it; I have to make decisions. When I choose, I try to stick with the program, and I am a pretty good sticker: witness 29 years with my wife, 32 years in church work, many years directing vocal ensembles, 20 years developing curriculum resources, years of work on several manuscripts, 15 years with Jim and Ruth, quite a few years with SAGE’s Telling Your Story, almost as many years the SAGE blog, on and on. I feel I just don’t know so often, yet I do know. My doing is related to a belief fostered by Mother who led Girl Scout troops, reared five children, presided over the PTA, taught leadership skills to adults and youth, and organized in the community. She said, “You set your mind to the task and do it. You can do it.” So that’s what I have done. I may know that I don’t know. I certainly didn’t know anything about blogs, but now I have two of them. Too often when I turn on my computer I can’t get into the program. I don’t know, but I think it through overcoming my frustration and eventually complete the task at hand.

Ninety-five-year-old Ruth often says to me, “I don’t know.” While we are working on our jigsaw puzzles—we’re in our fifteenth year—I ask about her past, her ideas, her kids. In answer to many questions, she simply says, “I don’t know.” I envy her. If at age seventy I said “I don’t know” as often as she does, they’d hurry me off for a brain scan and some therapy. But at 95 you can say what you want. Nobody will argue. I told Ruth our topic for today and said I wanted to tell a story about her. She scrunched up her face in distaste. “But, Ruth,” I said, “the group loves when I include you in my stories.” I made no promises to her. You see, for me “I don’t know” is the best line from a 95-year-old who looking me straight in the face said, “You’d better not.” Apparently, I didn‘t know how to be scared of her.

© 10 July 2017  

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

House Cleaning, by Phillip Hoyle

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