Sunday, November 4, 2007

Playing Catch-up, Part Two

As I was spending the better part of my Saturday cleaning my house from top to bottom, or more honestly, just trying to put away most of our stuff where it goes or at least where we won't step on it and cleaning up most of the spilled milk and Cheerios off the floor so it won't crunch under our feet, I got to thinking about the role models us "housekeepers" have to choose from.

The Deity of Domesticity, Martha Stewart, is the most famous one that pops into my mind. That lady sets the bar way too damn high. I was reading an article about her in Good Housekeeping, about her bouncing back from incarceration, and whoa, was that a good reality-check for me. That woman may have gobs of cash, and her pantry and linen closets may look good enough to photograph, but she has no life. I mean, if you consider giving up on sleep to do your own beekeeping, you seriously need to consider how you define the good life.

I'm sure she started with the best intentions. She probably made some killer jams, maybe an awesome pie or two, and could organize like the dickens and thought, heck, I can make me some money doin' this. Or, more likely, she thought, I need to tell the world how to be organized, so everyone else will finally live by my ridiculous standards. Alright, that's a bit of the green, ugly monster talking, but what's sad to hear is that she lives alone and rarely has the time for friends. She says that she's too busy to have anybody visit. This is a women who, somewhere along the lines, got her priorities very, very confused. She believes her life is made up of cleanliness and organization, that if she does it perfectly it will be praised. But by demanding she live up to her own high standards, she alienated herself from the true joy of living.

Life is not meant to be perfectly presentable pantries or neat linen closets you can't live out of. It's not meant to be personal root cellars and greenhouses, spotless hand waxed wood floors, or sun-bleached sheets folded crisply on the bed. It's about enjoying the best life has to offer. And although each of those things is a joy in itself, the sum of perfection is that nothing is appreciated. When everything around you is too good to be true, it's overwhelming.

As women, we are constantly bombarded by glossy ads featuring spotless homes, handmade crafts, homemade foods. And the message is that if we don't do it all, if we don't live the same perfect life portrayed in the picture, then we are failing. Hell, if that were true, I'd be failing every day. Because we can't do it all, and nobody does. I can tell you that I make the most unbelievable homemade zucchini bread from scratch, but that's the one perfect thing I choose to bake. I use frozen pie dough because I can't use a rolling pin to save my life. The damn dough always sticks no matter if I use enough flour to coat every surface in the kitchen. I mop my floors about once a month, though I may have to raise my standards once Brody starts crawling. I don't iron. Ever. I love crafts, but honestly, who am I kidding? I didn't even have enough time to carve pumpkins this year.

Do you know what? My husband and kids don't care. We have a happy house, even if we sometimes have to move the laundry just to sit down and watch TV. There's somewhat healthy food in the fridge, and plenty of it, and it's not worth my time to organize my pantry because my son will just come in behind me and move my cake mixes to the canned goods shelf. Life is too short for perfect. Life is not organized. It's messy, chaotic, unexpected. No amount of organizing will change that or protect you from it.

And there's something that's darn cozy about curling up in a rumpled bed in the middle of the afternoon to read a book. That's what I call the good life.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yes, that IS the good life. I'm with you-- especially the mopping once a month part! (I thought I was the only one... if feels good to get that off my chest...)