reinje's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There's Never and End to it (But Maybe There Is) I haven't written in days, weeks, even. Don't think that I'm not mortified. I am. But I am deep, deep in the heart of summer here in Cherry Valley. You know how it is when you are in a place or culture or frame of mind long enough, and just happily going along, until suddenly your world shifts back to what it was, and everything's turned upside down? That's about to happen to me in two weeks. I love this feeling, frankly. There's something really zen about it. I don't think that there's a word in plattdietsch for zen, believe it or not. I don't think my people really have a handle on zen - torpor, maybe. Zen, no. Anyway, I love this feeling because you know that you're forever changed, but you don't yet know why. And that's a beautiful thing. A couple of things snapped me out of this state, and I'll tell you what they are. First, He told me that the bathroom stank so badly He was finally forced to clean it. I am really, REALLY hoping he wasn't implying that he hasn't cleaned it since I left, which was, oh, 11 weeks ago. That's almost three months of mildew build-up. The other horrifying thing to snap me out of my Zen reverie happened this morning. I had gone to bed late. LATE. and was awakened by a police siren that sounded like it was going off in my room. I thought I would fall right back asleep, but there was this incredibly disgusting funky smell wafting into my room. I realized with horror that it was the garbage can, filled to overflowing (literally), the 27 empty beer bottles on the kitchen floor (I counted them as I placed them in recycling) and/or my housemate's cheese, a once-lovely chevre that she never repackaged and just left to fester in the fridge for three months. This combination of smells pestered me until I had to get up and clean the whole verkackten kitchen, and the front porch to boot, since we had been having a little klatsch on it the night before. This from reformed Reinje!!!! But it was self-defense, I tell you. For the most part, my plan to not clean has been rewarded by the occasional appearance of the Cleaning Crew (really, truly, gentle reader, they are as useless as a tit on a bull [Grandma Betty's words, not mine]), and Matthew Timothy Striker, who has turned out to be really quite consistently fabulous about cleaning the kitchen. Not up to the old Reinje's standards, but vat de kukket, who am I to complain? The thought of the smell in the bathroom in New York, combined with the actual smell in Cherry Valley, made me want to initiate pre-nuptials post-haste with Him. But just when it was bleakest, He sent me this delightful poem and all was forgiven: "There's never an end to dust - Poet Laureate Ted Kooser I think it was a way for Him to say, �I connect with you. Keep it real,� Or something like that. Or maybe, �Please come home and clean now.� Whatever the case, it gave me a great liberating sense to read this poem and to realize that I haven�t really missed the dusting and the cleaning and the compulsions at all. And I really don�t want to be seventy years old and still doing the same old song and dance. Now put some elbow grease into it. - Reinje
12:04 a.m. - 2005-08-10 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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