my house, I mean. I hate to clean house, do laundry, wash dishes. There is nothing about keeping house that I like. My mother, bless her heart, will attest to that. She likes a clean house and tried to instill that need for order to my sister and me. It didn’t take. I am, at the very core of my being, unorganized. It is a miracle that I can keep my photography, poems and stories in any kind of order and some of it, well, let’s just not go there.
I’ve had some time off this week and could have easily devoted a day to do chores around the house; I could have, but I didn’t. There were places to go and things to see that held much more appeal than vacuuming the rug or washing the dishes. Luckily, in regard to dishwashing, I don’t cook. If I can’t heat it up in the toaster oven or on the stove top, it likely won’t be found in my house. I used to heat things up in the microwave, but it stopped working several months ago and I just haven’t replaced it. But I digress.
This afternoon, I decided to have some soup. I heated it up, poured it in a bowl and went to get a spoon. There wasn’t one. They were all dirty. I looked more closely at the silverware drawer and saw that not only were there no spoons, there were also no forks or knives. I tried to remember the last time I had washed dishes, but it was a lost cause. At this point, I looked around the house and winced. Without me even noticing, it had become more cluttered than I am comfortable with. Shoes in the floor, papers on the couch; the usual clutter that normal people pick up as they go along. Don’t misunderstand … I don’t mind a little clutter, but when it gets bad enough to make me want to move, well then it’s time to get rid of it; so I cleaned. I vowed (as many times before) that I would be more careful to pick up as I go in the future; I knew, even as I told myself this, that it was highly unlikely.
It only took an hour or so to get it done, but in my mind, that was an hour or so that I could have spent doing nearly anything else. I can see my mom shaking her head and asking herself where she went wrong. Sorry, Mom. Some things never change.
A Photographer's Heart 