Keeping a
clean house doesn’t come very naturally to me. Maintaining a constant state of
clutter, though? I’ve made an art form out of that. I’m not even sure where the
stacks and piles come from. One day the place is tidy; the next day, chaos.
The denizens
of my house spent this past weekend cleaning. I find that the eight-year-old is
just the right age to run things here and there—toy to his room, dish to the
kitchen, stray sock to the hamper. (This may be why I had one of those, come to
think of it. It takes a long time for a kid to become useful!)
A clean
house makes me feel relaxed. It also prepares me to take on the next project.
There is no pile of mail to go through, no trash or recycling to take to the
bin. May as well write a poem, I figure, rather than, oh, watching TV and
feeling guilty about neither cleaning nor writing a poem. Clutter puts
everything on hold; we all move through the house in slow motion.
I went
through a period a few years back when I read everything I could about feng shui,
the traditional Chinese system that directs placement of items within a space
in a way that facilitates the flow of energy, or chi. A real commitment to feng
shui requires a much tidier setup than I have on my very best day, so I gave it
up as a bad deal—but the logic of the system sticks. Our own sluggishness inside
a messy house makes sense within the terms of feng shui. Clutter stops flow,
stops energy, and the negative energy builds in the places where it becomes
stymied. A tidy house with a careful arrangement the items within helps all of
us to ride a silver stream of chi.
In terms of
writing, the neatness feels like a boon—but the effect is so temporary for
someone like me, someone who leaves literal paper trails, someone whose first
move upon arriving home is to step out of her shoes in mid-stride, drop her
pants on the floor, then work her bra through her sleeve and slingshot it to
any corner.
There is a
question inherent in all of this. Is it a good writing strategy to tidy up
before setting in to work? As much as I like the (now deteriorating)
cleanliness, I did blow a weekend pulling it off—and that was a weekend I could
have spent writing. What’s more, a clean and tidy house has a short half-life
if I’m the one living in it. A weekend of effort is effectively neutralized by Wednesday.
Like so
many problems, money could solve this one. A regular hired housekeeper could
take care of the cleaning, and that would allow my family just to tidy up—an
easier job, but not a small one, by any stretch.
And along
those lines, full-time childcare would also free up some writing time. And so
could an errand person. A personal shopper. A chef. An accountant. It would be
lovely, too, not to have to go to work. Imagine! A person could wake up when
she wanted, work when (and on what) she wanted, have fun when she wanted, and
end each day relaxed. May as well add a massage specialist to the mix, while
we’re at it.
But in the
world I inhabit, there are courses to plan and to teach, papers to grade, kids
to nurture and to play with, meals to prepare, love to make, stuff to buy and
repair and maintain.
And there’s
a mess, gathering even now, in my brain and in my house. From a writerly
perspective, I actually believe it can be good for energy to stall and to
tangle in the brain, despite the benefits of flow. I suppose letting a thought
come and letting it go is a healthier way to live—but whatever would we write
about? The poet’s mind needs clutter. I just wish I could work the tangles out on
my own time, within the order of a perfect home.
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