Domestic Distractions

My excuse for lying on the couch instead of moving furniture is that I am knitting up a storm.  However, sometimes I get interrupted.

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.

Sleep vs work vs play

Last night I came home from work at 10 pm.  I was greeted with the microwave crisis:  sometimes it gets overloaded and stops working or displaying any signs of life.   The key is to leave it alone for awhile.  If you do that, it will emit a little beep, the electronic version of a deep breath.  The lights will come back on, and it's ready to rock.  D did not know this, so he had checked the breaker box and then shlepped the whole thing into the studio to test it on the plugs in there.  No dice.  He returned it to the kitchen, grumbling the whole way.  I sashayed in, jiggled the plug, and voila!  We once more had a working microwave.

But the damage was done.  It had been an exhausting day for me:  I got up early to walk the dog, then baked a pie and a quiche for tonight's gathering.  Then I spent 2 hours doing virtual reference ("is there a site for table manners in Israel?")  M stopped by to cut some juniper and cedar and gather some pine cones for her home decor.  (Smells are the most important part of the seasonal activities:  greenery, spices, baking.)  During breaks, I edited some OLAQ articles.  I did dishes, put away groceries, changed into khaki and white, and took off for the mall, which was frantically busy.  Again, I spent a good 15 minutes hunting for a parking space that wasn't in another state.

It was so busy in the store that the cleanup happened after we locked the gates.  It was my first time with the push broom.  I didn't like it.

However, I was determined to spend an hour on decorating the tree and listening to Christmas music and enjoying the lights and the annual ornament discoveries (where's the pickle?  the sailing santa?  the skaters?  the grandma ornaments?)  Unfortunately, D did not recover so quickly from the microwave incident.  We bickered, I fought with the tangle of lights.  The usual discussion ensued re:  process.  I believe in deploying the glass balls symmetrically around the tree, making sure the reds and golds are evenly distributed.  Then, I fill in the spaces with the ornaments.  D thinks the balls take up too much space.  Bicker, bicker, bicker.

By the time we were done with the main tree and the Charlie Brown tree in the studio, it was 1 am, and I had to get up for a 9 am rehearsal.  But I was too wired from the events of the day to sleep, and I had forgotten my restless legs meds.  So, it was another half hour of electronic scrabble, e-mail, etc before I got to sleep.  Today I rehearse from 9-noon, work from 1-6, and dash home to make toffee and cut up fruit for the gathering, which starts at 7.

Next week I am essentially working every day, sometimes at two sites in one day.

I am starting to feel like the microwave.