Domestic Routines as Distraction

Recently I have been thinking of two books I re-read often in my dewey youth.  I actually downloaded one of them:  Rose in Bloom, by Louisa May Alcott (she who ruined me for life, taking the impressionable young creative and turning her into one who finds more value in serving others than serving her art, a la Jo March.)  The other is Little Town on the Prairie, by Laura Ingalls Wilder (she whose family embodies all the pioneer traditions, from self-reliance to genocide.)

Today I figured out what they have in common.  Besides depicting an idealized (i.e. simplified) version of family and society (and the female's place in it,) they also provide a blueprint for dealing with the pressures and trials of living in a less-than-ideal world.  The technique is, in a word:  distraction.  And not just any distraction, but distraction via the domestic virtues.

Hence, when Laura's Ma and Pa take Mary off to college for the blind, leaving Laura in charge, she marshals her baby sisters into a week of spring cleaning.  "It was amazing how dirty they got, cleaning a house that had seemed perfectly clean."  When Rose's Uncle Alec is finally through the woods after his bout with malignant fever (and just what is that?), she and her aunts also fall into a spring cleaning frenzy, which leaves them afraid to move for fear of messing the shining order they have created.  (Actually, it was probably the maids.  But let's not quibble.)

So what is my problem?  I got laid off a year ago.  It was the perfect time to dive into de-cluttering activity, especially since it's something I have talked about for over 10 years.  It would be useful:  I need a space to work from home, I can't function in a mess, I want to create more spaces for airbnb rentals.  It would be a distraction:  I get tired of job-hunting routines, I get overwhelmed by financial woes, I get exhausted by emotional crises.

But, I am not made of the stern stuff of our fictional forebears.  I can neither face nor focus on the large domestic activities.  Instead, I putter in the kitchen, baking bread and pies and granola, spreading flour far and wide.  I knit and watch Judge Judy, losing needles in the sofa cushions and piling balls of yarn in bowls and on surfaces.  When I decide to organize the mountain of papers and books on my desk, I start folding boxes out of old calendars.  Instead of de-cluttering, I am re-cluttering.

Perhaps it's because, deep-down, I resent those role models and the effect they have had on my psyche?  In that case, it's time to emulate Jane Eyre, whose tale I have re-read more than the others combined.  When she learns of her accession to fortune, she steals Hannah away from St. John to clean down Moor House.  Hannah is charmed to see how jovial she can be in a house turned topsy-turvey, and it is delightful to see, after a few days, how order is restored to the chaos they have created.  (St. John stays away in horror.)

Of course, it would be easier if I had a sudden accession to fortune.