My House Is My Mind

There is a fierce wind blowing outside.  I think this whole day has been working up to a gale force push across the valley.  I've felt it in my bones.  It makes me a little edgy anyway. 

I believe that the state of my house reflects the chaos in my head.  I have been too tired for the last two years to keep up with anything and it shows in the piles of crap in the garage left over from the store.  Piles of crap from the old house.  Grimy shit that accumulates more grime the longer it sits where I shoved it quickly without thought. 

My clever bath salt kits which no one bought liquefied in the damp Pacific Northwest air and dripped corrosively down the shelf they sat on, eating away at the shelf paint, the metal basket on the next shelf down, the paper riff raff in its wake, the aluminum scoops used for herbs in the shop which were almost fizzing with chemical action.  The wet salt trail washed across the cement from the bottom of the shelf to the stacks of bags across the narrow pathway between piles of more crap and more grimy shit.  The bags and envelops soaked up some of the wet saline which used to be a clever product that no one bought.

It has been oppressing me for months.  Every time I go in there I know I need to deal with it but I can't.  I can't move my bones for long enough to clean up the growing damage and mess.  I saw when the boxes first showed signs of dampness and it was like a curiosity show being put on just for me.  I watched the whole show evolve and I lifted not one finger to stop it.  But this isn't surprising to me.  My house and my garage are reflecting the circus show my own mind has been putting on. 

Today something shifted, maybe the wind, and I felt so itchy in my own skin and suddenly couldn't stand it any more.  When it's that bad there's no good place to start and every effort will create even greater effort as you have to deal with other things in order to deal with the things you really intend to deal with.  Layers of tasks that must be peeled away with muscle and determination to get to the heart of the matter.  The source of the chaos. 

It was my kitchen cabinets that ultimately forced me into action at 3pm.  I had planned to do some dishes and then go (at least) bag up the soggy dripping boxes of salty ooze.  That was all I planned.  As these things sometimes go, I couldn't just do some dishes because there was so much shit all over my counters and when I tried to put it all away I discovered that there was nowhere to put it all away because my cupboards have been in a wild state of disarray for months.  I had bags of bulk goods crammed in between jars, some of them the designated jars the bulk goods were supposed to actually go into; last week's horrific discovery of the worm eaten peanuts in the plastic bag electrified me into action because with such a mess of bags and eager pantry pests there was no telling what else might be living in there and this too was a look into the worm eaten corners of my mind.

So to do the dishes I had to start sorting through the bags and shelves which ultimately produced more dishes to do.  I emptied out old scentless spices from my spice cabinet; boxes of food that expired two years ago, grains that have grown suspicious and unappealing, teas that had become nothing short of neatly bagged dust, chocolate that had suffered the heat wave of the summer and was palatable to no one yet lingered next to the candied ginger like a tired guest.

It only took two hours to get to the wet corrosive trail of melted salts in the garage.  I had gotten to the point where I needed some of the jars that shared the shelf with the mess and since I was taking out some trash already I took the moment by the throat and at last disposed of the bodies.  By then I was so deep into the cupboard project that there was no stopping unless I wanted to dive straight into a mental breakdown.  It's one of those projects that demands to be finished the same day it's started.  I haven't done so many dishes in one day for years.  All by hand since my dish washer broke a couple of weeks ago and there are a thousand more important things to spend money on than fixing it.*

It only took 6 hours.

6 hours to clean my kitchen cabinets. 

A 6 hours purge of chaos.

I also loaded the back of the car with a Goodwill run which Philip made.  The next bunch of crap to go will be donations to the women's and the childrens' shelter here in town, followed by more Goodwill runs.

If my house is my mind then I have a long way to go.  But perhaps it's enough to work at it one room at a time. 

I need to scour myself until all the corners are clean.  I know this is part of my reclamation process.  It isn't enough just to face old demons.  It isn't enough to simply rearrange the furniture of your spirit and mind.  You have to clean it out and scrape the crud off the edges, go through every box and thought and evaluate its worth and throw everything out that no longer fits or makes sense.  Last year I may have unearthed ghosts and faced old fears and injuries and pain, but this year I have to clean everything out.  I must keep working at changing my habits and making positive strides with exercise and food, but I get it now. 

I have to completely clean my environment now in order to evolve; to see the difference in my body, in my face, and in my heart. 

It's going to take a lot longer than 6 hours.




*Not being able to afford to fix it might seem like an unfortunate circumstance but I decided not to mind and it is now our giant built in dish rack.  Voila!  See how I turn the negative into positives?