Well, I wheeled the vacuum cleaner into the middle of the living room about half an hour ago, and left it standing while I gird my thingies for a full-house clean. Dolly is standing guard, glaring at the thing as if daring it to attack her. It won’t, not until I finish here and go pick up my day’s chores. It’ll not attack her then, either, though she’ll make as much fuss as if I’m about to do something dreadful to her.
Can’t say that house-cleaning has the appeal for me that it used to do. Seems to me as I edge ever closer to my dotage that it’s a bit of a fool’s errand, chasing dust. I can see the pride in painting the Forth bridge, inch by inch, working steadily to the end and then, hopefully with a new brush, moving back to the beginning and starting over. That’s a worthwhile occupation, with a visible result.
But chasing dust, and dust-bunnies, and washing floors, well, there is not much pride in that. Not for me, anyway. Not anymore. I tend not to see the grime anyway, not even when I’m shifting it. I know it’s there and, when I finish I know that it’s gone. But Nature, in her own version of painting the Forth bridge, promptly starts to replace it, ready for another session next week.
Perhaps if I were to start ironing shirts again I might regain some of the pleasure of house-work, enjoying the unique smell of freshly pressed linen. The pleasure, yes, but not the pride. Not any more.
Sad, that.
Dolly would be greatly pleased if I were to give it all up. Like me, she seems not to see the dust anymore, and it’s a long, long time since she did her own version of cleaning, where she shoved anything loose under the nearest piece of furniture.
You have to go on going on, though, don’t you? Doing your best, chasing the dust and the grime even though it means less and less as the years pass.
Graham will hit the place like a little Welsh hurricane when he gets home, seeking out all those corners that, with the best will in the world, I cannot reach. Dolly and I shall go sit outside, hopefully in the sunshine of a timely Little Summer courtesy of an obliging St. Luke, and I shall be ready at all times to brew tea to whet the worker’s whistle.
Oh well. Time to get cracking. Dolly had better watch out. There’s a creaky old house-cleaning demon about.
