in even the laziest creature among us
a wisdom no knowledge can kill is astir–
now dull eyes are keen and now keen eyes are keener
(for young is the year,for young is the year)
–let’s touch the sky:
with a great(and a gay
and a steep)deep rush through amazing day
Pete and Repeat Were Sittin’ on a Fence
The thing that kills me about housework is the repetition. No, that’s not it. The thing that kills me about housework is the thought of all those other things I could be doing instead of housework. Repetition is just part of life, after all.
We shower every day (or thereabouts, hopefully), we say hello and goodbye and I love you, we eat three meals (or thereabouts), we sleep, we work. So on. Life is full of repetition, and that isn’t always bad despite the occasional plunge into boredom. There are ways to avoid the boredom. And boredom isn’t really bad, but that’s another topic…
The Elusive Other
But it’s the other, the thought of the other, that gets me into a state of not boredom so much as dissatisfaction. I am sweeping, mopping, folding laundry, making dinner and all I am thinking about is what I can’t do right now. The other. The unavoidable, elusive other that waits for me, that seems so much more appealing, more worthwhile, more like what I really want to be doing and expressing about myself.
Time to Let Your Mind Deflate
“…a writer doesn’t only need the time when he’s actually writing – he or she has got to have time to think and time just to let things work out. Nothing is worse for this than society. Nothing is worse for this than the abrasive, if enjoyable, effect of other people” (1).
That’s the other, for me: writing, reading and all the scrabbling and nonsense which accompany. And you do need time to let your mind deflate.
You need mindless, repetitive motions, work that requires no mental labor, that leaves your mind free to wander and pick around and weigh ideas and sift images. I think that’s true whatever intellectual work you engage in; we work best when we challenge our brains and our bodies alternately.
You Need Rhythm to Get Music
I’ve wasted large portions of many an amazing day just rushing through the have-to-do items so I can get to the want-to-do stuff. What I ended up doing was kind of clicking off my brain, or letting it worry and get agitated, while dealing with the more physical parts of what I do. What a waste.
I’m finding a better rhythm, now. I need the housework as much as I need time to sit at my desk. I am both people, I am the same person whether I am mopping a floor or editing an article. The resistance I felt toward really engaging in housework (as opposed to huffing and hurrying through it) comes, I think, through the desire to prove that I’m not just a housewife. Look at me, look at me, I’m a writer, I’m important, I’m somebody!
To which inner ravings of my self-esteem-starved psyche I need a simple response. Something like shut up, nobody is listening to you right now. Something like hush, you don’t have to prove yourself. Something like humility.
(I hate that word. It’s almost as bad as patience.)
it’s brains without hearts have set saint against sinner;
put gain over gladness and joy under care–
let’s do as an earth which can never do wrong does
(minute by second and most by more)
–let’s touch the sky:
with a strange(and a true)
and a climbing fall into far near blue
-
Images
1. Autumn birch leaves and sky by estoril on Flickr.
Sources
1. Nadine Gordimer in Women Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews. George Plimpton, editor. You can download a pdf of the interview (free!) from ParisReview.org. Amazing resource.
2. e.e. cummings, “if up’s the word;and a world grows greener.” Poem at beginning and ending of this post.