Compost Studios

The good news is that the sun shone in Belgium this past week, an occasion for celebration. As I pulled back the curtains in every room to let the light stream in, I confronted an ugly reality—dust everywhere.

It was dense on the windowsills, a gray scum on our dressers, camouflaged on the bookcases, forming clumps on cobwebs in dark corners, sullying the china cabinets, dimming the glass mirrors, and whitening the black electronics.

The benefit of gray days, failing vision, and a poorly lit house is that I’ve been spared the sight of the dust and grime building on so many surfaces. The top of the toaster and kettle, the inside of the microwave, the hood over the stove, the curves of the lamp base. In the dim light of an average Belgian day, I am blissfully ignorant of the dust invasion, the subtle shift from clean to dirty. Each day my eyes are glued to the words on my computer monitor or the intricacies unfolding in the world outside my window. Dust is just dust in the background of my life. I'll address it when I address it.

My mother would be appalled. Even with six kids and her invalid mother under the roof, she kept a spotless house. She was always in motion and always tired. She weighed only 120 pounds but her feet slapped the floor with purpose. When she walked through the house, she sounded like a burly soldier marching off to war. Yes, she took a certain pleasure in her well-scrubbed home, but it was clear it was also a burden to her. As I moved through my teens, I sensed she was on auto pilot, doing her duty, waiting for her life to change, biding her time. As the years went by, the joy imperceptibly drained from her in a slow leak of disappointments.

This may explain why my own house is not like the house I grew up in, and why I find housework less and less satisfying the older I get. There was a time when my whole house got thoroughly cleaned every week and underwent “spring cleaning” twice a year. Now I do what’s necessary and leave the rest until the spirit moves me or company comes (I have my pride). The E-Man, who really likes a clean house, tolerates my approach and cleans the things he can’t live with.

Which brings me to this poem by Erica Jong:

Woman Enough

Because my grandmother's hours
were apple cakes baking,
& dust motes gathering,
& linens yellowing
& seams and hems
inevitably unraveling
I almost never keep house
though really I like houses
& wish I had a clean one.
Because my mother's minutes
were sucked into the roar
of the vacuum cleaner,
because she waltzed with the washer-dryer
& tore her hair waiting for repairmen
I send out my laundry,
& live in a dusty house,
though really I like clean houses
as well as anyone.
I am woman enough
to love the kneading of bread
as much as the feel
of typewriter keys
under my fingers
springy, springy.
& the smell of clean laundry
& simmering soup
are almost as dear to me
as the smell of paper and ink.
I wish there were not a choice;
I wish I could be two women.
I wish the days could be longer.
But they are short.
So I write while
the dust piles up.
I sit at my typewriter
remembering my grandmother
& all my mothers,
& the minutes they lost
loving houses better than themselves
& the man I love cleans up the kitchen
grumbling only a little
because he knows
that after all these centuries
it is easier for him
than for me.

Poem copyrighted by Erica Jong. See www.ericajong.com for more on the author.

January 11, 2006