In praise of housework

It feels good to be outside, I think to myself as I force a broom across the wet cement, which produces a muffled scraping sound. The tree outside our townhouse, for all the lovely shade it provides in the summer, has long been contending for the title of Messiest Tree Ever, and the recent rain has unleashed a small avalanche of small branches onto our porch. Furthermore, the ground is still graced with a layer of the tiny and highly obnoxious leaves released by the tree every fall, which we only recently eradicated from the house completely. As if that was not enough, the porch is still littered with reminders of our prickly Christmas tree and clippings from the dormant mint plant I had just cut back. In short: a mess.

Sweeping a wet porch, even when you put your best effort into it, is rarely very productive. But eventually it does start looking presentable, and as an added bonus the fresh aroma of wet pine and mint mingled with straw from the broom (which is receiving a rather vigorous beating) fills the air.

Apparently mindful of the fact that it is a playoff weekend, the courtyard beyond my porch serves as home field to a half dozen young boys, each of them speaking a language half their native tongue and half English, playing football. They are yelling such helpful and encouraging advice as “Why are you so afraid? Catch the ball!” and “What are you, a retard?”

Boys will be boys.

Leaving the porch a little less of a trash-heap than it had been, I meander inside and open every window in the house. It is a perfectly comfortable 63 or so, and I see no reason to not let the fresh air in – especially if winter should decide to show up at some point in the near future. I recall standing on a street corner inauguration morning two years ago this month, temperatures in the teens (if that), believing with every fiber of my being that I would not have a nose or ears by the end of the day. Believe what you will about global warming: whatever is going on is an improvement.

I tackle the kitchen and soon rediscover the original color of the stove, the countertops, the microwave, and finally the floor. As I stand at the sink and continue surveying the amateur football game from my window while scrubbing the range, it occurs to me that I am smiling. Not only am I smiling, but I am enjoying this.

This is weird, I ruminate. So many people would do anything but housework, and here I am getting this strange high from domestication. Then, a half-grumble: I'm not THAT homeschooled.

Distracted momentarily by particularly bad burn marks on one part of the range, I begin to wrap my mind around this sentiment. I probably wouldn’t like housework if I had to do it all day, every day, but it’s so different from what I do on a regular basis that it is easy to extract enjoyment from it. For one thing, most elements of housework offer fairly instant gratification. You don’t have to review the proposition “a clean kitchen is better than a dirty kitchen” before Committee and spend several months determining a course of action before acting to correct the problem. The new Democratic leadership isn’t going to stop you from vacuuming. (Smoking is, of course, an entirely different matter and among other things a non-issue in this household, thank heavens.) The idiocy of other staffers doesn’t interfere with laundry. No office politics or drama involved – no power grabs, no promotions. The people you live with always want a cleaner house.

And if you run into difficulty, the solution is generally simple: scrub harder or use a stronger chemical. Mental hurdles such as writer’s block, which can ruin an entire day of work, are not a concern. No one is going to write back to me about what I did or didn’t do.

So I waltz on in my messy ponytail, maroon sweater, and jeans. More sweeping, scrubbing, dusting, vacuuming, dishwasher unloading and loading, trips to the laundry room. I’m free to accomplish things, free of the interference of other people’s agendas and opinions. Of course I am happy.

So here’s to housework, both an escape to and from reality, a welcome respite for those who spend their weeks in cubicles and marbled halls, sometimes rubbing shoulders with people who have never cleaned a toilet in their life and are worse off for it. Truly, I feel sorry for them.

Maybe Congress – especially the Senate – would be a lot more functional if more of them did housework on a regular basis.

Ah, well. At least it will delay the insanity of this staffer a little longer.