My old kitchen floor
My kitchen floor is teaching me a great deal. First, let me say that I am grateful to HAVE a kitchen floor. Not everyone does, and it is a luxury and a blessing. Having said that, my kitchen floor is my least favorite part of the house I am currently living in. It is a white and pale gray linoleum floor, but the problem is that it is very old, and being very old, has degenerated to the point that its surface is very grainy and porous. It looks fine when it is clean, but its surface sucks in dirt and dust at an amazing rate, so that after a few days it starts to look and feel (if you are barefoot like I prefer to be) really gross. The worst part, though, is that it is very, very difficult to clean. Mopping is not enough--no matter the mop, no matter the cleaning fluid--the only thing that works is getting down on your hands and knees and scrubbing hard with the scritchy side of a scrubby sponge.
It takes about 30 seconds of scrubbing for each square of linoleum. Depending on how dirty the floor is, this means from 2 to 3 hours of hands and knees scrubbing. Even if you like to clean, which I don't, there is no way that 2-3 hours on your hands and knees scrubbing fiercely is fun, though it is a good work out. My partner and I try to clean the floor once a week and we take turns, so each of us is only facing this onerous task once every couple of weeks. Nonetheless, every time I had to do it, I used to feel miserable, and then continue to feel worse and worse until by the time it was done I was exhausted and very grumpy.
But the thing is, I hate a dirty floor. I hate the way the grit and grime feel under my feet and I hate looking at it while I'm having breakfast or making coffee. And the entrance to our house is through the kitchen, so its the first thing I see when I walk in. So for me, there really isn't an option, but to face the scrubbing at least every other week.
And there is no way to speed it up while its happening. This I have discovered as my insides try to hurry the task along and my outsides try to find shortcuts and tricks--none of which work. So something has started to happen that is rather mysterious and spiritual, actually. And yesterday, I realized that it has something to teach me about many tasks in my life--particularly, currently, the arduous process of finishing my dissertation.
What happened is that I began to surrender. I didn't decide to, exactly, it just sort of happened. After failed attempts at resistance, rather than cry, I just began to sink into the rhythm of the scrubbing. Scrub scrub scrub scrub, wipe wipe wipe wipe, and move on to the next square. As I went, I began to see the brightness of one square at a time compared to the parts I hadn't cleaned yet, and it began to fill me with some kind of joy--a satisfaction and hope. Rather than being dismayed at all the squares that lay before me, I focused all of my attention and energy on the one little square I was cleaning. And I found it to be meditative, even therapeutic. My mind quieted, I began to sing sometimes, listen to the birds outside my window sometimes, and actually, I can't believe it, but enjoy the task and the process.
Now I actually almost look forward to my turn to clean the kitchen, because I know that the job itself will force a state of being that I rarely find on my own. The hardest part now is when I am nearing the end. When the squares get enticingly fewer, I begin to rush ahead, longing for the end, and I inevitably feel a return of the impatience, frustration, and my own daily anxieties. The last part of the floor is never as clean as the rest of it!
So yesterday I thought of my floor and this place that I have found in the cleaning of it, and I thought of it after realizing that I have (temporarily, I hope) fallen out of love with my dissertation. It has become drudgery and my procrastination and need to take breaks with increasing frequency and of increasing lengths is not just a reflection of my character flaws, lack of discipline, or laziness, but rather of the reality that I don't love what I am doing anymore. In fact, I sometimes hate it.
It was scary, but freeing to say that "out loud" to myself in my mind as I was going on a walk past a beautiful stream, wishing I could spend all my time doing things like that. And once I felt that freedom, I was able to move past it and into acceptance. Ok, so maybe I hate my dissertation right now, maybe I'll even always hate it, though I suspect that is not the case, but say it is, I still have to finish it, and it is not even a question in my mind that I wouldn't give it my all to finish it. There is too much I want and need on the other side of its completion.
And that is when it hit me. My unfinished dissertation is like the dirty kitchen floor. I can't just leave it that way--I have to clean it, because I love a clean floor and a dirty one is not something I can live with. And no one is going to clean it for me, and there is no short cut to make the task any easier, shorter, or less hard work. So there it is. I don't have to love it. I just have to do it. And maybe if I relax into it, surrender to the task of cleaning each square before me, the "drudgery" will transform--at least sometimes--into something meditative, something therapeutic, something meaningful in its quiet way. And maybe then I can stop seeing all of the unwritten chapters and the revisions left to do, documents left to tabulate, and instead see the pages and pieces I've done slowly add up. It takes the time it takes, but if I keep going, I can't help but get to the other side of the kitchen.
It takes about 30 seconds of scrubbing for each square of linoleum. Depending on how dirty the floor is, this means from 2 to 3 hours of hands and knees scrubbing. Even if you like to clean, which I don't, there is no way that 2-3 hours on your hands and knees scrubbing fiercely is fun, though it is a good work out. My partner and I try to clean the floor once a week and we take turns, so each of us is only facing this onerous task once every couple of weeks. Nonetheless, every time I had to do it, I used to feel miserable, and then continue to feel worse and worse until by the time it was done I was exhausted and very grumpy.
But the thing is, I hate a dirty floor. I hate the way the grit and grime feel under my feet and I hate looking at it while I'm having breakfast or making coffee. And the entrance to our house is through the kitchen, so its the first thing I see when I walk in. So for me, there really isn't an option, but to face the scrubbing at least every other week.
And there is no way to speed it up while its happening. This I have discovered as my insides try to hurry the task along and my outsides try to find shortcuts and tricks--none of which work. So something has started to happen that is rather mysterious and spiritual, actually. And yesterday, I realized that it has something to teach me about many tasks in my life--particularly, currently, the arduous process of finishing my dissertation.
What happened is that I began to surrender. I didn't decide to, exactly, it just sort of happened. After failed attempts at resistance, rather than cry, I just began to sink into the rhythm of the scrubbing. Scrub scrub scrub scrub, wipe wipe wipe wipe, and move on to the next square. As I went, I began to see the brightness of one square at a time compared to the parts I hadn't cleaned yet, and it began to fill me with some kind of joy--a satisfaction and hope. Rather than being dismayed at all the squares that lay before me, I focused all of my attention and energy on the one little square I was cleaning. And I found it to be meditative, even therapeutic. My mind quieted, I began to sing sometimes, listen to the birds outside my window sometimes, and actually, I can't believe it, but enjoy the task and the process.
Now I actually almost look forward to my turn to clean the kitchen, because I know that the job itself will force a state of being that I rarely find on my own. The hardest part now is when I am nearing the end. When the squares get enticingly fewer, I begin to rush ahead, longing for the end, and I inevitably feel a return of the impatience, frustration, and my own daily anxieties. The last part of the floor is never as clean as the rest of it!
So yesterday I thought of my floor and this place that I have found in the cleaning of it, and I thought of it after realizing that I have (temporarily, I hope) fallen out of love with my dissertation. It has become drudgery and my procrastination and need to take breaks with increasing frequency and of increasing lengths is not just a reflection of my character flaws, lack of discipline, or laziness, but rather of the reality that I don't love what I am doing anymore. In fact, I sometimes hate it.
It was scary, but freeing to say that "out loud" to myself in my mind as I was going on a walk past a beautiful stream, wishing I could spend all my time doing things like that. And once I felt that freedom, I was able to move past it and into acceptance. Ok, so maybe I hate my dissertation right now, maybe I'll even always hate it, though I suspect that is not the case, but say it is, I still have to finish it, and it is not even a question in my mind that I wouldn't give it my all to finish it. There is too much I want and need on the other side of its completion.
And that is when it hit me. My unfinished dissertation is like the dirty kitchen floor. I can't just leave it that way--I have to clean it, because I love a clean floor and a dirty one is not something I can live with. And no one is going to clean it for me, and there is no short cut to make the task any easier, shorter, or less hard work. So there it is. I don't have to love it. I just have to do it. And maybe if I relax into it, surrender to the task of cleaning each square before me, the "drudgery" will transform--at least sometimes--into something meditative, something therapeutic, something meaningful in its quiet way. And maybe then I can stop seeing all of the unwritten chapters and the revisions left to do, documents left to tabulate, and instead see the pages and pieces I've done slowly add up. It takes the time it takes, but if I keep going, I can't help but get to the other side of the kitchen.
posted by RandomWriter at 7:05 AM
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