spring cleaning

Okay, so it’s not quite spring. Only a few warmer, sunnier days and a bit of wishful thinking.

Today I slept through my morning classes. Well, I woke up when my first class was half-over, and then I proceeded to make a conscious decision not to get up and rush to my next class either unshowered or unmakeupped, since both were not going to happen within twenty minutes, and I am 150 pages behind in the book we are discussing anyway, so I would have nothing to contribute to the conversation, and my professor is out of town. I had grand plans of reading all morning and afternoon* (since I do not have class again until 6 pm), thus catching up on my schoolwork (for that class, anyway) and having an enjoyable, relaxing day as well (since I really do like the book).

Plans, schmans.

Got up and puttered around (it’s one of my talents) until Naiad swam home, then continued to do non-homework-related activities while she skipped her next class to study for another (she actually succeeded in this point). So I’m sitting in my favorite spot (it has a fabulous view of the sky), wishing the breeze coming in through the open window were as warm as the sunshine and chattering birds seem to say, and I notice (again thanks to the sunlight) that my computer screen is very dusty. So I set about making it undusty. Hmm, keyboard could use some work, too. Well, one thing leads to another, and before I know what’s going on I find myself inside my bathtub, scrubbing the shower from top to bottom, front to back, left to right, et cetera. I will not say how long it has been since this last happened, because my mom might be reading and I don’t want to cause her any unnecessary stress**. Anyway, it’s been a while, so I’m cleaning for a while. And I get to thinking (there she goes again, doesn’t she know it gets her into trouble?) As I was saying, I was thinking not only about how nice it was that my bathroom was looking inhabitable once again (not that anyone would inhabit my bathroom–gross) but that cleaning can be satisfying in a metonymic sort of way as well.

See, like now my bathroom is clean. It’s not perfectly spotless, nor will it stay as clean as it is for long. People are going to use it, and people are messy. And even if we didn’t use it, it would get dusty anyway. So I feel that part of my mind has been scrubbed clean. It will not remain shiny and fresh-smelling forever, and if I neglect it, it will get dusty too. But it still feels better. Like the dust has been cleared from the crevices and now my neurons can breathe (okay, so neurons do not really breathe–think figuratively, people, work with me here) and I can see a little better what is going on up there.

The living room is still a bit more cluttered than I’d like, the carpet needs to be vacuumed at least once a day to keep it looking clean, there are always dirty dishes in the sink, and sometimes my roommates put my wood-handled knives in the dishwasher. Pardon me, that last item was tangential. So it is with me: I still have a vast number of schoolwork-related tasks to do that are scattered among the spaces of time in which I might address them, every day the people I let into my mind carry in bits of the outside world on their shoes and the floor needs vacuuming again, and my little daily failures and disappointments pile up until I get tired of looking at the mess every day and I realize that no matter how long I wait, nobody else is going to wash them, even if they helped dirty them, and I break down and wash them and the empty kitchen sink is a beautiful sight.

And now it’s time to go to class and this is the only thing productive I have done with my mind all day. At least it’s a little less cluttered.


*Those are grand plans? you ask. Welcome to my exciting life.
**I refer, of course, to the specific activity of cleaning the shower, not just finding myself inside my bathtub. Give me a break; it is shower week, after all.