When I must be by myself but I cannot stand to be with myself. An attempt to subdue, to tame my surroundings, as if polishing into line could make them feel more right, more like mine. Slowly I edge things into their rightful places, and try not to think about what rightful place might mean.
I let my mind run feral. I have tried to soothe it, to sink it into mindful dishwashing or sculpting a poem with thought-words. But it growls. It snaps. It threatens to run me over with chaos. So I let the leash go. I cannot make myself consider what this means, to witness almost helplessly the constant fluctuation between tidy and shambles. To be wiping the coffee stains off the counter for the 1,058th time. Two days from now it will be the 1,059th and there's nothing wrong with that.
But I can't shake that for a substantial handful of reasons my time to make this place a home has passed, that I'm just biding it here now. And as this liminal occupation of space stretches bigger and bigger, it mounts into more of a frustration, feels more and more like a waste. Even though I can't remember, or don't know, what it feels like to be on either side of the threshold, I've been sitting here for so long.
I fold another shirt. Put another book back on the shelf, Creative Mythology by Joseph Campbell. What does it mean to want a home. Dishes go in the cabinet. It is everything about the space and nothing. Take also into consideration sharing it with another human being, one who has an entirely different set of feelings and non-feelings for this same place, and the potentiality of a new one. Empty the dustpan.
Cleaning makes me feel better, and also worse. Like I am tricking myself, it's all a big lullaby. One day mabye I will tame my taming, turn procrastination into zen. That day is not today.
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