Crisp colors of evergreen against the snow, Dyken Pond Environmental Education Center.

A few hours ago, my hands were barely able to curl around a knife in order to butter a bagel for dinner. Even now, it’s not easy to grip and flip open the laptop, and type. I plan to do an hour of yoga later, but along with achy wrists, my knees are sore from kneeling on the kitchen floor–not brush-scrubbing; I don’t have Cinderella fantasies–just wiping and rinsing, wiping and rinsing, the layers of dust and dripped food from Christmas and New Year’s and daily living.

And vacuuming–I seem to have lost, or never owned, the extension arm to my vacuum, so the bare-floor attachment clicks to the end of the hose and requires an up-close relationship with the floor to maintain contact. I did manage to squat part of the time but often the angles were too awkward to maintain. Hence the bruised kneecaps and cramp-y hands.

Tool at hand, back together for the rugs.

It was time. The apartment needed cleaning way before the holidays, but since I had December guests coming, including a large, sweet, and very fuzzy dog, I only disinfected the bare minimum before their arrival, and left it at that.

Until this week, when it couldn’t be put off any longer.

When I thought about each room and how many things needed to be moved in order to de-grime properly, my old surgical aches came back–a wonderful indicator that I need to approach from a different mental angle.

I used to be very list-driven. The lists always started out long, and even as I circled jobs-done, more got added, seeming to approach infinity.  Now the inventory is general: “clean kitchen, clean bedroom, clean front room, clean dining room.”  I wander from space to space, trusting that the big job will get done through all the little jobs I feel called to do.

The question I ask: What will make it enjoyable, and let me do something I’ve secretly really wanted to get to? 

The speed I go, even with the compulsion to rush, since there’s so much to do? Slow.  And when panicked? Even slower.

Yup, house cleaning as meditation.

Today’s answer as to what I secretly want to do?  Put on my bed the new blue and white batiked duvet cover from Ten Thousand Villages. Well, have to change the sheets and sweep the floor first. Doesn’t that feel good, crisp sheets and plumped pillows? Oh, but I have to dust all the surfaces before doing the floor!  All right, leisurely pull every piece of jewelry off the hanging organizer, wipe the hooks and smile over the beads, the iridescent bangle, which earrings went with the sparkly outfit, for that delightful community dinner on Christmas Eve–and for the raucous snowy romp with the dog on January First….

Objects hold memories and I remember, as I handle them.

A bit of feather-down, fallen into snow. Remember the snowy walk?

Another answer to the question about what brings joy for me today: organizing all the snowshoeing gear, after drying my trekking poles.  Ok, better stack the grocery bags to go out to the car, which reminds me–start the shopping list.  There’s the camera–upload the photos from the latest walk at Dyken Pond, where I got the gear wet in the first place. And wasn’t it a great walk?

A third job to bring relief:  moving the red chair into the front room, exchanging it for the reading chair, whose awful green checked cushion at last gets covered with a deep purple fringed blanket. Vacuuming the dining room wasn’t so bad, I can finish this quickly and after moving the chairs, pull out different candle holders–look, there’s the battery charger I’ve been missing!

All day, for days, I’ve wandered and somehow along the way become motivated to do the hands-and-knees cleaning that has now transformed my living space.

Finally, all those wonderful negative ions have been moved around, along with my belongings. I learned last year how to rearrange photos and sculptures so I see them again, how to shift the tchotchkes endowed with history and stories so I recognize and appreciate; after sitting in the same-old-same-old spots, my eyes would no longer be caught and would pass over them–along with that slight layer of dust that faded everything.  Now I’ve cleaned the dust, I’ve re-seen the objects, all is new again.

Now I can see the art glass tray, the ceramic lotus, the dried flowers still bright with pink and yellow.

A confession: the bathroom only got a quick wipe down, and it will take a couple days to really scour the kitchen.  But wood is glistening and lights shining brightly, surfaces are clearer and paintings placed in new positions of honor.  A votive flickers in the window.

Tomorrow morning as the tea water comes to a boil, I’ll do more smaller-scale wandering in the kitchen:  washing dishes, wiping down cabinets, reading recipes. I’m cleaning, I’m dreaming, I’m wandering; I’m meditating my future life into being.

The rhododendron blooms are already set here in early January; what does that say about being more ready than you think?  about not needing to rush? about trusting in Spring?