Day 19

I'm cleaning the kitchen. Really, really cleaning it. And thinking as I clean. It's where I do some of my best thinking. Is it because of the squares? There are lots of squares. Grids, racks, checks, tiles.
This is where I do my most honest thinking. Today, cleaning in here is my pleasure. I'm enjoying it.
I've lived in this house for rather a long time, though. And the ghosts of other cleanings live in the grout. I wonder how many times I've cleaned this kitchen? I really don't want to know.
I fixed the broiler. Actually, Spencer and I fixed it together. It took about five minutes of figuring out how it worked. And about forty-five seconds to fix it. But that was early in the cleaning, before I started thinking.
The kitchen can be a very honest place. How many women have cried while scrubbing a floor? Today? This month? Since women have been scrubbing floors? Or made plans, joyful or murderous? Or given up?
I'm just saying...

But I'm not crying today. I'm limping, a little, but counter top detailing doesn't require a lot of walking. Thinking though, if it gets out of hand, can lead to pacing. That's not gonna happen today, not without the cooperation of both ankles. I'm doing the sort of cleaning that needs to be done occasionally while working some things out in my head. I'm wondering if the book I'm working on currently is the one I really want to be working on right now. I'm wondering if I'm brave enough to complete the work I'm compelled to create. I'm not sure I am. The more I wonder the more I do the obsessively detailed cleaning, like washing the collection of monsters that live on the windowsills.

In the end, the kitchen is sparkling and quirky and comfortingly familiar. I haven't sorted the rest out. It's too much, too big, which possibly means I'm not ready. Doesn't really matter why. I didn't get it sorted out. I took a frank look at it though. That's a decent start.