Cleaning House

The flannel sheets we bought new ten years ago just gave out. My husband kicked a soccer ball in his sleep and put his sharp toenailed foot right through it, where it had frayed thin as gauze. Today I spent half an hour cutting what was left into rags, remembering the basement apartment in Sitka, Alaska where we lived when we bought those sheets, and how many homes we’d lived in since then, what we have survived, and celebrated.

So now seems like as good a time as any to go abroad for a year.

Same thing with the dishcloths and dishtowels that I bought when we were first married – they’re getting frayed and faded and turned into cleaning rags at a high rate, and for that matter, the futon mattress in which we have sunk gratefully and comfortably to sleep for a decade – in those cozy flannel sheets - has developed matching indentations, his and hers, which will not disappear not matter how many times I rotate it. It is time to pass these things on to someone who isn’t yet married or to recycle them, in a more thorough version of spring cleaning than I’ve tackled since the last time we moved south from Alaska.

The cleaning house metaphor is often used when relationships have crumbled but in fact Walt and I are still married, 15 years this year, on June 13. I know that might be a letdown for people who love a good tragedy, like my writing teacher in grad school who was sorry that we’d worked through the difficulties associated with a white bread Protestant Midwestern flatlander marrying a heathen from the Cascades. The plot of that particular story would’ve been more poignant, perhaps, if our differences had been insurmountable, but here we are. I’m proud that our marriage has outlived our linens; if we’re lucky and keep at it perhaps we’ll even outlive the quilts I’ve inherited from my grandmother. More likely, Reed will inherit the quilts, which don’t get near as much daily wear and tear as Walt and I.

Some people think preparing for a trip such as we’re taking, a year in Europe, is a lot of work. For me, it is sheer joy. I’m never happier than when I’m sorting through the closet dumping the old stuff into a box for a garage sale, shredding the contents of old files, taking inventory of the cupboards and planning how many apple crisps I will need to make before we leave in order to use up all the plum jam from the pantry. (12, which is also the number of chickens in the freezer that I need to roast, fry, grill, or stew before August 1. I will never be able to eat the 10 jars of bread and butter pickles – so they will go to friends.)

Living out of a backpack for a year at age 39 doesn’t scare me, in fact, I can hardly wait to pack and get going: 7 pairs of underwear, pajamas, two t-shirts, two sweaters, two trousers, two skirts, 5 bras, 7 pairs of socks, work shoes, town shoes, a book, a reading light, my laptop, a towel, and a little bag of bandaids and toothpaste and stuff like that. I won’t need to carry any scouring powder, keys, or the thick pad of paper on which I usually write my “to-do” lists. Housework isn’t something one spends a lot of time doing when one is living out of a backpack; neither is driving a car, or doing good deeds for one’s church or community, all things wonderful and necessary but of which I am tired. I can still do the things that are essential to me. What might it be like to be a writer and a wife and a mother, still, but while living out of a backpack? Why not see? Why not see NOW?

When I was 15 my dad had to transfer and I was offered the opportunity to change high schools and towns, from a small one to a medium sized one, both still in Iowa, but a universe apart. At first I reacted sentimentally about the friends I’d grown up with since kindergarten. How could I leave them? But then a boy from the new town kissed me, something none of my old friends were likely to ever do, even D.P., my neighbor who’d walked with me hand in hand to kindergarten until peer pressure got to him and he learned that girls had cooties. Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if I’d stayed and given D. the chance, once we were 17; after all, he had never stopped being the first boy I ever really liked. But I packed my things with a good dose of teenage resentment and left almost without looking back. Ever since, I’ve had no trouble giving in to my itchy feet.