122 in the foreground, 124 is my office next door
If the inside of a house (outside, too, I suppose) is a metaphor of the lives of the people who live in it – which is something I once read somewhere – gosh, are we in trouble. Our house is a mess. I consistently clean it room by room, thinking often of the legend that the Golden Gate Bridge that says there’s some guy constantly painting it.
I feel for him.
While I am sure the view is wonderful I must believe that the poor guy whose doing it daily from one end to the other must find the wind and the weather quite a challenge. Our house is the same (without the view and some of the weather), but instead of painting, I am the guy constantly cleaning, – and, just like the bridge, it’s hard to tell.
There are scooters and bicycles across the piano room (boys), mail in piles (me), books (boys and me), newspapers (me), magazines (me), and socks (boys and Max, the Chihuahua), where I swept yesterday.
Turn my back and the boys and Max are at it again – enjoying life as boys (and a dog) while I find being a cleaning lady quite a challenge.
I have noticed there’s a point of no return; a point of the chaos where I feel compelled to let it all go, throw up my hands and join in the fun of trashing the place. But when I clean I’m just like the guy painting the Bridge, which I can only imagine must be a slow, methodical, and onerous task.
I do it room by room. I start at one end, the front (in the event that I soon lose interest – then, at least, the front room is somewhat in order) and I push it (trash, magazines, books, socks, clothes) all back through the piano room, then into the TV room until everything lands up in the kitchen. My broom becomes a bulldozer.
Once it hits the kitchen, and by which point a sizeable pile has developed, I separate out what’s Max’s – he’s has his own set of toys with which he ruins the house – what’s Nates, what’s Thulani’s, and what can be recycled or dumped.
We moved into this house (which we call “122”), which has had very few updates since it was built in 1886, when Thulani was about two – and I have been getting it in order ever since. Nate joined us in 2002, and Max in 2009. The attachment, for the boys and Max, is strong.
When I talk of selling (which I do frequently) Thulani reminds me that Rhino, the Husky that was on the run for nine months and returned to die within a few weeks of getting home, is buried in an Air France first class red cabin blanket just outside of the kitchen door. Nate reminds me of where the fat goldfish lies buried. Thulani ends the litany with his inability to think of living in a house without the large tree in the front yard where he has his brother (and Max) have peed like boys (and a dog) for the past several years.
So, I’ll go on cleaning this house. Before you send me letters about giving the boys chores and responsibilities and assigning daily tasks and getting on top of it before it gets on top of me let me advise that you are barking up the wrong tree (sorry, Max for the dog metaphor) because we do have all that in place and it does work here and there and off and on.
I know. I know. Consistency is the name of the game for parenting and let me tell you, the ONLY thing that is consistent here is the need to keep going room by room with or without the boys (and Max) to get this little bridge painted, one stretch at a time, so the world can see just how organized, decent, and quiet our lives are here at our beloved 122.
