I hate to clean, hate washing dishes, dusting, scrubbing, but it has to be done. I paid someone to clean my house after I was in a car accident, but otherwise it seems like an indulgence to get someone else to clean your own house, like you’re some kind of princess with “important” things to do, like write this.
My Dalmatian shed a lot. White dog hair everywhere. On the floor, on the couch, in my shoes. I bought a brown couch, and it was clean for a few hours. Until he jumped up on it, sniffed it, walked around in circles and plopped down in a spot, happy.
A solid brown fabric couch. What was I thinking? Covered with white dog hair no vacuum could completely remove.
After my Dalmatian died, I was too depressed to clean. Eventually I did. I can’t live in a mess. I found that I didn’t want to vacuum the couch, sweep the floor or clean the nose prints off the sliding glass door. I didn’t want to erase the marks; it felt to akin to erasing him.
For weeks after, longer, any time I found a white dog hair on my clothes, I tucked it into my pocket. It reminded me of Jimmy Stewart’s character, George Bailey, in the film “It’s a Wonderful Life,” as he tucked Zu Zu’s petals into his pocket, petals fallen from a flower his daughter got in school and loved. She wanted him to fix the flower, since Dads can fix anything, and he pretended. Later in the film, he checks his pockets for the petals. They represented his life. His heart.
I continue to clean and sweep, but one day I noticed the sweeping was different. The dust pan only contained brown dog hair from our Rhodesian Ridgeback, no more white dog hair.
It seems ridiculous to get emotional over dog hair in dust pan. It’s not really what Emily Dickinson meant, but it is what came to mind and caught in my throat:
The Bustle in a House
The Morning after Death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon Earth –
The Sweeping up the Heart
And putting Love away
We shall not want to use again
Until Eternity.
(poem numbered 1078)
Commuter Culture 