Sometimes what I need is space.
Some emptiness.
The past week was a full one.
Taking my Dad out for lunch and a "leaf tour,"
Meeting with clients,
Teaching T'ai Chi,
Sitting with a dear friend at the hospital while her husband had open heart surgery,
Having lunch at our house with one of my writing groups,
Enjoying lunch with friends who had just returned from the civil rights tour we went on a year ago,
Attending the middle school play to support our grandson who was the Sound Crew,
AND, officiating at a wedding. The first time I have done that and what joy, what fun that was!
Of course, there were all the normal bits and pieces of day-to-day life, too. Doing the laundry. Grocery shopping and meal fixing. Responding to emails. Writing my posts for this blog. Running errands.
Now first let me say, there were so many gifts during the week, and how grateful I am for this rich life and for the privilege of being with friends and family in both the ordinary and the exceptional times of the their lives. But I admit I was a bit weary as we headed off to church Sunday morning.
What I needed was some space. Some open space.
So what did I do?
I cleaned the garret. I suppose I could have put my feet up and read the newspaper or a book or even napped, but that wasn't quite what I needed. I needed to see open space. Some emptiness. I needed to at least give myself the illusion that not everything is packed to the brim.
Cleaning and reorganizing does that for me.
The result? Four empty drawers in the garret, an empty shelf and two empty baskets. A very full garbage bag.
AND a heart and mind open to whatever fills the coming days.
An Invitation
How do you clear the space? I would love to know.
I once had a set of vintage kitchen towels embroidered with the designated task for each day of the week. If I recall, Monday was wash day and Tuesday ironing day etc. They were colorful and fun, but totally not an accurate account of how my week flows.
My mother always cleaned the house within an inch of its life on Thursdays and frankly, coming home from school that afternoon was not a welcoming experience. We kids were reminded that she had just cleaned, so "don't mess up anything." I get that, for when I clean, it is nice to have everything pristine for at least a few hours. Mom cleaned on Thursday and bought groceries and got her hair done on Friday. More than likely she did laundry on Monday, and I think she cleaned bathrooms everyday.
In this regard I am not my mother's daughter, and I don't have much of a schedule. I am more apt to wash clothes when the laundry basket is getting full, and perhaps Bruce has already started a load, anyway. I clean when the house needs to be cleaned or when I have the time or inclination or when company is coming.
Or in the case of yesterday because I needed a break from writing, and I needed to clear the space before tackling this week's writing tasks.
Sunday had been a frustrating day at my desk. I was a bit behind writing the chapter to submit on Monday for my online writing class, but I finally had found the rhythm and was pleased with how it was coming along. Just as I was about to hit the print button, all six pages disappeared. Yup, that's right. Gone and not to be recovered, no matter what I did.
I had not followed my own guidelines about backing everything up and saving and printing drafts. Perhaps I should have those rules embroidered on hand towels and hang them in view of my desk. Please--no chastising or advice. I messed up in more than one way, and I am grateful I only lost that one chapter. Lesson learned.
I spent most of the rest of the day recreating the material, and I was able to meet the class schedule, but would you believe when I started printing my copies, I ran out of ink AND the printer jammed. I always have extra ink cartridges, and I was able to unjam the printer fairly easily. Never mind my ink stained hands. It was just one of those days!
Given the lost time, I didn't do anything else I planned to do on Sunday. My desk was overflowing with tasks I had put off all week, and it would have been nice to read the Sunday papers on Sunday and…and…and.
That brings me to Monday, a day open and unscheduled till time to go to a writing class at The Loft Literary Center in the evening. Just what I needed. I decided to do my version of laundry first--clear my desk and my email inbox. I filed and organized and answered necessary emails and deleted many more and did some online ordering and even allowed myself some fun planning for an upcoming field trip this week with friends. Stay tuned for that report.
At last I thought I was ready to return to my desk and put on my writer's hat and begin work on this week's assignment. This week I will begin working on a big new section of my book, and that feels a bit daunting to me. More than a bit. I know I will need lots of concentration as I move through a muddle of trial and error. Was I ready? Not quite.
I don't know that anyone else would notice, but my garret office felt a bit stale, just a bit grubby and grimy to me. I needed to dust and vacuum. And so I did.
Sometimes that kind of clearing the space is just what is needed to move on or to settle into the situation at hand. Clearing the space can reveal what we really think and feel and what we need in this exact moment or what the next steps in our forward movement need to be. And none of it feels possible before we clear the space. Intentionally and deliberately.
I suppose sometimes clearing the space --or doing other than what you said you were going to do or are supposed to do--can be viewed as a distraction or procrastination. But often clearing the space, the physical, emotional, or spiritual space is just what is needed, and the Universe responds with a sigh of relief. "Good for you. You listened to what you need, and now you are poised for the next step."
Sometimes clearing the space means taking a walk or a nap or reading a book for pure escape and pleasure. Sometimes clearing the space means having a good cry or raging about a current loss or dilemma in your life. Sometimes we need to simply declare defeat and call it quits. Sometimes we need to enlist the help of others, professionals or a close friend. Sometimes we need to sit in quiet meditation or prayer and surrender to the present moment.
Yesterday I just needed to dust and vacuum to clear my space.
An Invitation
What do you do to clear your space? How do you know when clearing the space is what is needed? I would love to know.
Crazy, I know it was crazy, but I decided to polish a few pieces of silver the day before we left on vacation. Polishing silver was not exactly a necessity. In fact, it wasn't even on the master list I had created the day before, but there I was standing at the kitchen sink polishing a small restaurant tea pot and a plate monogramed with the letter "A" and other bits and pieces of silver collected over the years.
Some of us hearth goddesses have an extreme need to leave our homes in perfect condition when we are going to be gone for awhile. I knew a woman who vacuumed herself out the front door as she was leaving and left her vacuum cleaner in the garage. I'm not that bad. Ok, maybe I am. I hate leaving dirty laundry in the hamper or dishes in the dishwasher. When I come home, I want only to unpack, not clear a mess from days or weeks before. This time the need was a bit more intense since our home is for sale, and there was going to be an open house while we were gone and, I hoped, some showings as well. That still didn't explain the desire to polish silver.
I remembered the short story by Tillie Olsen, "I Stand Here Ironing," in which the main character thinks about the circumstances of parenting her first child. It has been a long time since I have read that story, but, if I recall correctly, the mother in the story reviews her life and some of its difficult decisions as she irons, smoothing out wrinkles.
As I stood there polishing silver, I banished tarnish, rubbing slowly and deliberately, and I thought about my Grandma Hansen who always polished my mother's silver when she came to stay with us. I thought about people I have gone antiquing with over the years and the pleasures and treasures of those days. I remembered the delight of finding a napkin ring engraved with the word "Aggie." Our son's school nickname was "Aggie." Who was this "Aggie?" Another napkin ring is engraved with "David," and how happy I am that occasionally there is a David at our dinner table.
I breathed in the view from my kitchen window, a rooftop view I happen to love, even though a recent potential buyer was negative about that view. To each his own. I will miss this view, but I wonder what I will see from my next kitchen window.
I polished the silver and I slowed down, resting in the time out from the real list for the day. Polishing the silver--not much time or effort for so much pleasure.
My intention today was to clean the house. The entire house. Top to bottom. I intended to clean, not because Monday is cleaning day, but because the house needs to be cleaned. Unlike my mother, I don't have a regular cleaning day. Mom cleaned on Thursdays, and I must admit I sometimes dreaded coming home from school on Thursdays, knowing she had been working hard and would be tired and who knows what I would track in or mess up. Nope, no regular cleaning day for me. I clean when the house demands it, and the schedule allows it. Today is the day, I announced to myself, for the winter sun is shining unrelentingly on thick dust, and too many nights of having supper in the den has taken its toll. Fortunately, I generally enjoy cleaning.
So how has the day proceeded? Well, first I decided to go downstairs and do my morning emails and then I wrapped the Valentine presents that should go in the mail tomorrow, and as long as I was in the wrapping mode, I might as well wrap our grandson's birthday presents. Then I put away the stack of books on my desk that looked like a library's RETURN HERE section, leading me to do a general reshuffling of my bookshelves. One thing led to another. Eventually, I told myself I would clean the lower level first and then head upstairs by noon.
It is now nearly 4:00 and here I still am in my office on the lower level. I have dusted, and I have vacuumed, but the first and second floors remain untouched. I haven't even taken a shower yet today, but am still wearing my morning exercise clothes, and my hair needs washing. Please, no one ring the doorbell this afternoon! And I have no idea what we are going to have for dinner because I have yet to go to the grocery store.
That's the thing about intentions. Sometime they aren't the real thing. Sometimes they are meant to be changed. Sometimes it is important to be flexible. I recently read a book called Aging as a Spiritual Practice, A Contemplative Guide to Growing Older and Wiser by Lewis Richmond in which he writes about the importance of being flexible and not just physically, but also mentally and emotionally. "Rigidity reduces pleasure and possibility in our life and closes doors that need to remain open for aging to blossom." I decided to blossom today! I decided to listen to what I really wanted and needed to do today, and I have followed those whispers one after the other.
I emptied my bulletin board of the happy accumulation from 2011 and made my year-end collage with those items. The nearly empty board now awaits this year's cards and pictures and Chinese fortunes and who knows what else will be welcomed there. I went through a small pile of notes and discarded or redirected. I found a stash of cards that have been sent to me over the years, including one from my mother written in 2001 and for a moment I sat quietly and enjoyed her presence. I did quite a bit of this and that, but not what I intended to do. Oh well. Some intentions are looser than others.
One of my daily intentions is to practice centering prayer, and before I fixed myself lunch I sat in the living room in the quiet and rested in Spirit's presence. Later on today I will keep another of my daily intentions: I will write today's letter and even though I don't yet know who will be the recipient, I trust I will know when it is time to write. Those intentions carry more weight than the intention to clean today. However, my intention tomorrow is TO CLEAN!
Sometimes what I need is space. 
