Carried Away with Choices

  This is a ridiculous photo (flowers in your cleaning caddy?  Please.  Everyone knows the only things that belong in your caddy -- you do have one, right? --  are cleansers, rags, a duster, and a petite dustpan).  

However, I chose this picture for the rope.  Yep, that rope nestled smugly amongst all its little cleaning compadres is unquestionably appropriate.  Because there is nothing that makes me feel more like stringing myself up from the rafters than heavy cleaning.  And given my naturally-whimsical OCD nature, I often engage in heavy cleaning.  

When I am Home Alone, I have choices.  There are tasks that must get done or my eye will start twitching, like laundry and wiping down the counters, and then there are those cleaning jobs that could be done but aren't absolutely necessary.  

And there are all the non-cleaning options -- I can work on figuring out my life's work, I can watch the University of Iowa writing lectures on DVD that I had to have six months ago because I was going to systematically watch every one and do every single homework assignment, I can read any of the heaps of books we own that I haven't even cracked the covers of yet, I can meditate as I make my way down The Mindful Path through Shyness, I can continue my research on friendship, etc., etc.

But time and time again, I clean.  It isn't fun, but it's a whole lot more concrete than figuring out what color my parachute is* (bland, by the way.  It's not even a color - just bland).  In addition, cleaning so nicely fulfills that relentless part of my psyche that demands I keep moving, keep accomplishing order in my life.  And that's why I love that there's a rope in the above picture.  The rope reminds me that cleaning in excess (which is my particular vice, it could be anything done to excess) will result in exhaustion, and with exhaustion comes a skewed frame of mind, a mind that is a touch too desperate for relief. 

You sometimes see a woman who would have made a Joan of Arc in another century and climate, threshing herself to pieces over all the mean worry of housekeeping.  ~Rudyard Kipling

 

*Reference to the book about career choice, What Color Is Your Parachute? by R. Bolles.  A read that has given me multiple eye twitches and one technicolor nightmare about horses.

Comments

[Rbancroft6]

I have to admit this is the first time I've ever followed a blog and I'm thoroughly enjoying it! I love that you're so professional and write in your references with each post! :)

[Sarah B.]

Thanks, Rachel! I am glad you are enjoying the posts. I am enjoying the writing of them.