The letter S

January 31, 2008

Okay, anyone who knows me well, or ever has, knows of my adoration of language and deep appreciation for the power of words. Well today I was blessed with a newfound sense of appreciation for the letter S. Specifically when placed in the middle of the word cleaning. Ooh ooh! Break it down! clean sing Yay for that. Anyway...

I am working on a project in the basement of our house. This room has served many purposes over the 20 years or so Paul and his dad have lived in this house. For a long time it was Paul's bedroom, it's also been rec room, band practice room, party room. It was once our bedroom, Paul's and mine. The dogs slept down here too since they can't be trusted to run around the house at night without making various types of messes - plants, food, bathroom, etc. When Paul's brother moved in with his dog about six years ago, said brother's dog started a marking contest with our, then two, male collies. Since then, and still after brother and dog moved out, our dogs never got over themselves, even after one was neutered, so they were relegated to the basement full-time. Now don't freak out if you're an animal lover; they have plenty of room down here and a big yard to go out into, they're well fed, we spend lots of time with them, it's just been their room. I mean, how many dogs do you know with their own 15 x 23 bedroom?
We moved out of the basement when Gabriel was a baby because the dust and dander and dryness during the winter was too much and I couldn't listen to him rasp during the night anymore, so we moved upstairs. (It's a tri-level.) Since that time the basement has basically been home to the dogs, the massive waterbed, my PartyLite office/storage facility, and a dumping ground for accumulated junk.

So anyway, we've (I've) decided to move our bedroom back down here. After 4 years of storage and dogs it was pretty messy. No, it was filthy. Interesting difference between messy and filthy, isn't it? Ah words... So, I've been cleaning in preparation for moving back in. Steph has been over a few times to help or at least keep me company and she can tell you that the change has been dramatic. Just getting all the PartyLite stuff sorted has been a major undertaking. Three years of doing anything will rack up quite a bit of "stuff" to be dealt with when it's done. Wow. Ponder that sentence for a minute...

Well, I've been working on this project for over a week. A couple days ago I remembered a book I had on my shelf from a long time ago called Creating Sacred Space With Feng Shui by Karen Kingston. I knew it had a bagua in it and wanted to check it out again, which is why I got the book off the shelf, but of course I want the bedroom I share with my husband to be nothing less than a sacred space.

I've learned a lot in various venues over the past few years about the effects clutter can have on a person's life and Kingston talks quite a bit about space clearing in the book which was a good reminder for me. Tuesday was trash night and in addition to the large bag from the kitchen there were five bags of "stuff" from the basement. See, I've been clearing while I've been cleaning. Clearing out the past and the clutter and the trash and various things I've been holding onto for no good reason for I don't know how long. No matter how many times in my life I take on a clearing project, it never ceases to amaze me how good and freeing it feels to let go of "stuff."

My plan for the room involves moving the office back up to the second floor and rearranging the furniture down here. Remember the massive waterbed I mentioned? I'm not exaggerating. It's a king-size, underdrawer-pedestal, mirrored-lighted-bookcase-headboard, full-mirrored-canopy waterbed frame. The thing has to be completely disassembled to move an inch whether there's water in it or not. The mattress had been leaking a bit in a couple spots and we have a soft-side water mattress upstairs to replace it, so it was a good opportunity to move it, otherwise my precious husband probably would have strangled me for ever suggesting it. So I drained the bed, cleaned out the crap that had slipped down between the mattress and frame (ew) and cleared off the headboard. Then I had to take down the mirrors. They're plastic and lightweight, but they were coated with nast. Really, that's the only word for it. Nast. Icky, furry, cobwebby dirt on the top of the mirrors and framework and all the stuff Paul had stuck up there - old newspapers, aquarium bulbs, miscellaneous keepsakes. *shudder* I don't have OCD or anything, but I really don't like dirt. I've been "ick"ing the whole time I've been working on this whole undertaking because of the way it makes my hands feel. I may have to consider stock in Curel lotion. Regardless, with Paul's help, the bed has been completely disassembled and I wiped down each piece with a damp rag as it came off. Yay!

Yeah, so, I've been doing a lot of cleaning. Today I was on my hands and knees cleaning the floor where the bed used to be when it hit me... the S thing... Such a little thing. Today, I filled a bucket with warm water and Murphy's and wiped down the west wall. I moved the nightstand back out of the corner where I had wanted it placed and scrubbed out the dirt that had accumulated where the floor and walls meet. I got down on my hands and knees and wiped down the baseboard and heat register. I used a piece of broken drumstick or something I found under the register and cleaned out under the fins of the register. I must have found ten bucks in mostly dimes and pennies under there. And then, on my hands and knees, with a rag, I started cleaning the floor one square tile at a time. And it occurred to me. This whole thing has been a cleansing process. I've been purging what was old and no longer needed - trash, old papers, things, clothes, even memories. I've been condensing what must be kept - objects of use, objects of value, precious things that we look at and remember why we are who we are. And now I'm on to cleansing. I'm lovingly, carefully wiping away the yucky stuff that has clung to bed, the walls, the floor... and really to our lives.