Cleaning House

My blog is clogged.  My journal sits waiting to be paid attention to, pen at the ready. My knitting needles lost their click and I haven’t been lost in a good book for months. These things are the way I work out the stuff that churns inside my brain, my heart, my soul.  It has happened before on rare occasion. I have reached a place in my life when I am at a loss for words, my creativity has come to a screeching halt because of the internal work consumes all. At times like this I have to clean house. I watched my mother do the same thing… I knew she had something on her mind and she would commence to clean. To seek out every nook and cranny and make it right.

I am my mother’s daughter. I am transitioning, changing my life in ways unimaginable. It has taken every inch of my fiber, my being to grow… to take these steps. And since I am not using my traditional “tools” to cope, I am my mother. Not a bad thing. I am cleaning house. I open a drawer or cabinet and go through it. I find all the lids to the plastic ware and if there is a missing piece it goes in the trash.  I spent part of New Year’s Eve matching socks. Yes, I actually threw the singles away knowing its mate would never surface. I have tried on everything in my closet and sectioned off a part that fits, will fit and must consign.

 

And on those particularly turbulent days I make laundry. It’s not like I don’t have enough laundry to do and I actually don’t like doing laundry. But there is something about doing laundry, the methodical rhythm of finding the bits for the wash. The kitchen towel, the hand towels, the blankets on the couch. Then turning the knob, adding soap and loading. , Next the turn over to the dryer, cleaning the vent, turning the knob. Warm clothes enter the basket… the smell of clean laundry. Then, the folding, matching of socks, and making neat stacks. I do this all without really thinking, I enter a Zen state of laundry. My mind is captured by the method and I find peace. This is the one task that I do mindfully without actually having to focus on being mindful. I acknowledge the other “thought bombs” and let them go, I’m doing laundry.

So my house is almost clean and the laundry is nearly done yet the writing still comes in mad rushes. It is obvious that radical steps remain. Time to change the color and cut my hair.