Having a clean house is false

It is simply not a permanent state of being.

(This, my friends, is an illusion)

As my scruffy husband would say, parking his gloves on the kitchen counter, his shoes on the rug, and firewood in the middle of the living room: entropy.

Not true! I protest. Think of so-and-so: whenever we go to their house, it's always spotlessly clean. That may be so. But it is also undeniable, that I have never seen the interior of so-and-so's house when I wasn't there. Incredible as it seems, they may simply clean their house in anticipation of my arrival. Come to think of it, I've done the same thing for friends, relatives, book club, an occasional home appraiser, and even a cleaning lady. Who knows? Maybe some people I know evoke me as the model house keeper (Lord help us)?!

I used to visit my friend Meg in her opulent home in a suburban development, and marvel at the spare and and tidy, almost ascetic feel of her living room. As my eyes rested languidly on the smooth stretch of pale rug, and climbed up the sunlit walls unmarred by scuffs or children's frescoes, I imagined she and her husband were simply blessed with an innate ability to put things away, and leave no trace, or perhaps they never even made a mess. Possibly they glided a few millimeters above their pristine maple floors, floated just over the sofa cushions without disrupting their immaculate arrangement, and opened cabinets by emitting light puffs of air from their mouths. Obviously their children were much more perfect than my own, and never even brought a sticky finger to the vicinity of a sparkling glass surface, let alone dare to touch it.

I was jarred from this reverie by the arrival of Meg's eldest son who rather abruptly placed a lump of play-do on the very sparkling glass coffee table I was admiring and began to mash it vigorously. Bits of play-do separated from the mass, and landed on the rug, contrasting attractively with it's pale fawn tufts. Amazing. Meg's child was no different from mine.

Once I revealed to her what I had been thinking, she exclaimed "Are you crazy?! Half an hour before my husband gets home I race through the house with a bottle of windex and a vacuum cleaner, just so he doesn't have a heart-attack!" Uh-oh. So much for levitating above the rug blowing puffs of air.

Her husband's anticipated reaction to mess sounded much different than my own spouse's would have been. In fairness, it turns out that's Meg's husband is not only a lover of order, he also makes a tremendous, perhaps disproportionate effort to maintain it, scrubbing dishes after working a ten-hour day, polishing the granite counters, and buffing steel appliances to a fine sheen. By contract, Chris takes a mess in stride. Nay, he enhances it. Perhaps I simply don't have enough spousal pressure, not to mention, er, assistance, to maintain a clean house.

Not that my husband is a lazy oaf. Far from it. Recently, in advance of a mothers' tea gathering (to which, as a non-mother, he was not invited), he spent two hours cleaning the porch, including mopping the floor which was caked with layers of mud and debris from a recent snowstorm, so that the mothers might enter our humble abode in style. He spends literally hours a week cleaning dishes, scrubbing the stovetop, and managing trash and cat waste removal from the premises. He does his own laundry, and, more than occasionally, some of mine.

However, he labors in these short, intense bursts, and quickly moves on to something else. As he does, he leaves a trail of belongings throughout the house, and I follow, tucking them away here and there. "Have you seen the torn bit of envelope with the bank manager's number on it? You didn't throw it out, sugarpie, did you?" "Oh no, sweetie, I stashed it by the recycling bags, along with your gloves and sunglasses, cuz I thought you might need it again. Found'em? Good."

Ultimately, taking the whole-house view falls on my shoulders. The mothers have left, having drunk their tea, and the living room is clean and quiet. I can relax for a bit. For a bit, because only I know the state of the laundry room, and the condition of the floor under my daughter's bed. Only I know when was the last time someone cleaned the floor in the downstairs bathroom, and I know that the basement stairs have not been vacuumed even longer than that. I also happen to know the exact height of the pile of kids' laundry balancing precariously behind the closet door, and the number of books stacked on the floor waiting to find their way back to the shelves.

Somehow, we equate an ordered house with an ordered mind. It's not that my household to-do list is unmanageably long, it's just that it recycles itself week after week. No matter how many tasks you cross off, these tasks will inevitably pile up again, every day, every week, every blessed month. In my house, and I suspect in many others, order can be achieved only for a fleeting moment.

My other friend Mary and I have discussed the crippling effects of household disorder: you can't do anything until all the other stuff is cleaned up. The desire for perpetual order is a futile, unrealistic, and frankly false dream, and the sooner I give it up, the more likely I'll be to keep my sanity.

Comments

[Debbie]

Ahhh yes! The levitation, transubstantiation, move it with a puff of air scenario of existence. I wish!!!!!! Entropy? The Aegean stables? I dunno, but no matter how much I clean, or how often, things are forever untidy, or even downright dirty. Given how impossible it is to keep my living quarters (let alone desk) in a respectable state for more than 15 minutes, I can't imagine how tough it is for someone blessed with both children and a "scruffy" husband. Just the depredations of my tidy but not very clean roomate sends me into stratospheric conniption fits... The other night I got back from a crazy day at work and attacked the kitchen. I washed a leaning dishrack of Pisa's worth of dishes, scrubbed out the sink, scrubbed the stove and counters, wiped the myriad bike/food grease fingerprints off the fridge and microwave and and and, swept and washed the floor.Beautiful. Delightful. I then went for my usual long ramble through the neighborhood. Thought I'd make soup upon my return, in my spotlessly clean sanitary kitchen. Yeah. When pigs fly! I got home, psyched for major culinary adventures and discovered said roommate unloading goods from an incredibly successful dumpster diving mission(an entire web page in that, let alone a post or comment). OHMIGAWDS. He had been home a mere 10 minutes. And had completely and utterly erased the beautiful (and SANITARY) results of my cleaning spree. Clean house = transitory situation lasting no more than minutes!!!! Dang it. Did I make soup? Interesting philosophical question. I made soup appear. Using a $20 bill and my telephone - Khai Tom Kha and Panang Curry appeared on my doorstep. And was eaten in my very untidy, but at least sanitary, bedroom!!!!

[Penny]

Hi, thanks for your comment, I just dropped by. Now I know something else we have in common - husband's personality type when it comes to cleaning: lots of labour and limited efficiency. The logs in the middle of the living room floor... I know that one!!

[Justyna]

Hey, Penny, glad you made it here. I've been enjoying your blog.
Deb, I guess all other things being equal, I'd rather have my husband than your dumpster-diving roommate. With all due respect, of course.

[kim]

Looks great! I wish I could give up that tidying need to do everything before I can relax. Our place is rather small and I feel like if I don't keep a handle on it I am soon drowning in clutter. I let it slide well past my mother's standards of orderliness every day, but for me it is a lot more organizing than I want to do. I miss the roomba....