Reflections on Housekeeping
by Peggy Schimmelman
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This was written by my friend, Peggy, for a presentation for our Writing Class that we both take. I thought readers might get a kick out of it. Enjoy!
Corinne Mustafa
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Inviting friends over for pizza and board games seemed like a good idea in the middle of the week when I spontaneously issued the invitations. But this morning, waking up to a day that would necessarily be dedicated to de-cluttering and dusting, vacuuming and mopping, scrubbing tiles and scouring sinks, I drag myself out of bed with a self-pitying sigh.
Lingering over breakfast, I ponder my dislike of house-cleaning. Few people love it, I know, but certain comments by my sisters and friends on the subject have led me to believe that my aversion is stronger than most. How did this unhealthy attitude develop, I wonder, and could it be overcome? Learning to enjoy cleaning would be too much to ask, but could I perhaps figure out how to get though an entire day of it without growing grumpier with each swish of the toilet brush? Without stamping my foot and cursing the forty-year-old electrical outlets that keep spitting out the vacuum cleaner plug? Without muttering to myself, snapping at my husband or shouting at the cat?
I don’t think of myself as a lazy person. I work out at the gym three or four times a week, I never turn down an opportunity to dance, and my husband and I take at least one brisk neighborhood walk every day, weather permitting. My list of hobbies and interests would fill this page, although admittedly, ninety-nine percent of them are best enjoyed in a sedentary position. Still, I don’t think you could accurately describe me as sluggish – at least not until it’s time to drag out the cleaning supplies and mount an attack on several weeks’ accumulation of cat hair and dust bunnies. So if the problem isn’t physical, I remind myself, then It must just be in my head, and perhaps all that’s needed is an attitude adjustment. Lately, I’ve been trying to take a more Zen-like approach to many aspects of my life, including my job, my diet, ageing, and my husband’s reduced travel schedule. Why not apply the same principles to house-cleaning?
Perhaps, I tell myself, I should try to stop thinking of housework as something that keeps me from more interesting, rewarding pursuits. Rushing to get the drudgery behind me, working against the clock, serves only to raise the level of tension and to further darken my mood. And what’s the hurry, really? It’s true that I could use this time to paint, read, or finish that story for my writing class. But the truth is that I might just as likely sit in my rocking chair and work my second crossword of the day or chat on the phone with one of my sisters for an hour.
So this time, instead of hurrying through the process as usual – that is to say, with much sighing, frowning, cursing and muttering - I take a deep breath and give the woman in my kitchen mirror a smile and a little pep talk. “Relax!” I tell her. “You have all day to finish the job, and there is nothing else of any importance that needs to be done.”
My aversion to housework is a lifelong affliction, possibly genetic, but more likely absorbed from parental modeling. My father drove away to work each morning, then came home in the evening and plopped down into his favorite chair (with a cup of coffee brewed by my mother) to wait for dinner. My mother never worked outside the home, so managing the house and six kids was her job. She had no car and no driver’s license, and the closest thing she had to a hobby was watching the soaps for an hour or so in the afternoon, after the house had been whipped into shape. To me, her day seemed a whirlwind of washing and ironing, sewing and sweeping, mopping and dusting. She often had sore feet and chapped hands, and little energy left after dinner for anything more than a sitcom or two on TV. But did she ever complain? Yes, of course she did - not only with words but with sighs, frowns, and woeful shakes of her head. “Just look at this mess! I picked it all up yesterday,” she would lament. “I swear, I don’t know why I even bother.” There was never any doubt that she hated her job, and so I grew up thinking of housework as exhausting, boring and unrewarding - a woman’s load to bear.
With all those kids (you might ask) why didn’t she train all of you to pitch in? The house was small, and as an organized family cleaning unit we could’ve rendered it spotless in one hour on a Saturday morning. When my sisters and I were old enough, we began to share the chore of washing the dishes, and we were expected to make our beds, but nothing more. My mother never even taught me how to properly hold a dust cloth, and when I asked once, on a whim, if she would teach me to cook a whole meal by myself, she snapped at me. She didn’t have time for teaching on top of all her other work, she said. It was easier to just do everything herself. As a result, my dislike of housekeeping is intensified by my suspicion that I’m unqualified for the job. My painted walls bear the scars of my well-meaning attempts to remove fingerprints, my wood tables have wax build-up, and I can never seem to get all the streaks out of the mirrors and windows, The vacuum cleaner leaves tracks on my rug no matter which direction I push it, and the toilets never look as clean as I suspect they should.
But today I am taking a new approach to cleaning – a calmer, more Zen-like approach. My husband vacates the premises, as usual. He used to stay and pitch in, but comments such as “Good grief, you’re in the way of the vacuum again” and “I already cleaned that bathroom, damn it, why do I even bother,” have led him to believe he’s better off roaming the aisles of various hardware and electronics stores until the cleaning frenzy runs its course. So today I’m on my own, but I resist the urge to whine about it.
I tackle one room at a time, starting with the smallest and working my way up. I scrub the guest bath and the laundry room, and decide I’ve earned a break. I call my sister and we chat for twenty minutes. “I’m in no hurry,” I tell her. “I’m just cleaning the house, and I have all day.” I take on another bathroom, the one I used to make the kids clean before they escaped the nest. When the woman in the mirror complains, “No one even uses this bathroom anymore; how does the shower still manage to get dirty?” I .shrug and remind her, “Cleaning is neither bad nor good. It just is. And anyway, you’ve got nothing else of any importance to do.”
I clean on through the afternoon, with breaks for lunch, a preliminary stab at the Saturday crossword, and a couple more extended phone chats. Finally, I’m finished! And I’m a little surprised at how good I feel – not only about the way the house looks, but also about the new approach I’ve discovered to help me get through my most hated chore with a minimum of stress. The woman in my hallway mirror looks serene, proud and happy - for about five seconds, after which her eyes fly open in horror.
“For crying out loud!” she complains..“Would you please get your darn feet off this wet floor? I swear, I don’t know why I even bother!”
