Dust Bunnies
My sister and nephew arrived yesterday from Maine and, as we were driving back up to Ojai from the airport, I somehow believed that our time together was expanding. On Thursday, hiking and hot springs. On Friday, yoga and Christmas shopping and then a caroling party. Saturday, brunch in town and then…and then…and then. But when I woke up this morning, the first thought that occurred to me was, Oh my god, it’s already Thursday and she leaves on Sunday.
Sadness. The very clear realization that my sister’s visit is painfully short. That in just a few days I will take her back to the airport and then turn my car around towards Ojai – only it will be empty this time. My sister and nephew’s laughter, chatter and comforting presence packed up and gone just like their suitcases and backpacks and sweatshirts that had been strewn about Shady Lane just hours before.
It’s always been so hard for me to come back to an empty house. To sit with the mess after Christmas morning realizing that the festivities are over and done with. To return to a table that was once cluttered with love and companionship but is now stripped-clean, wiped down and put right.
What does that even mean: put right? I typically run around in circles putting right all day long. I hang up the kid’s wet towels. I hastily remove the unsightly stickers from the fruit I just bought at the grocery store. I plump up the throw pillows. I align the mugs so that all the handles are pointing in the same direction. In the pantry cupboard, the labels of every single can and jar face out. A bit OCD, don’t you think? An obvious case of someone who is trying to contain her life, to make it appear safe and organized and pretty.
But life is messy and disheveled. My pillows are dented, my stacks of papers are sliding out of order. I fail to catch the wet towel crumpled in a corner behind the door and when I discover it, it stinks and has already mildewed.
And just like the material stuff of life, the immaterial stuff is also disheveled. Russell and I hit an all-time low in April, in December we separated. And I have now increased our overhead by taking a house of my own while unemployed, and disrupted our children’s lives. And that’s just my immediate family. Back East, where my father and step-mother and multiple siblings live – I am confronted with a whole other host of issues, many of them tenuous and scary because they have to do with health. So, yes, life is pretty messy.
But I am not going to end this post by saying that, as a Buddhist warrior or conscious and aware woman, I must lean into the mess. Surrender my vain attempts to tidy the inconvenient muck and mire that comes tracking through the living room every single, livelong day. Screw that. I like to feel tidy! I like the visual appeal of a house that is in order. So, I will continue to make sure that the labels face out. Nor do I want to dwell in uncertain intangibles forever. I will rebuild. I will love my children. I will find work. I will seek the authority and the independence that I want and need because it is my right to be a self-actualized woman. I will fight. I will roll up my sleeves every day and chase around the dust-bunnies because that is what makes me feel good. And feeling good is important.
But it does seem prudent to lean into the realization that, no matter how much I gain, something will always slip from my grasp, apparently with a mind of its own. That, once I have the ground floor put right, I still have to venture up the stairs to the second floor and then the third and the fourth. We evolve as people, but messes move right along with us. They just shape-shift, forever playing cat and mouse.
So, when I drop off my sister and nephew at the airport and return to Shady Lane alone, I might just sit for a quiet moment and take in the stillness. Take in the empty, quiet rooms. The sudden vacancy will, I’m sure, leave me feeling bereft. But I will be richer still for the four days of companionship that I gained. That is the point: in the losing, you also gain.