Extreme Mopping

The back hallway was a mess and I tackled it today. Not that large a space, maybe 14 feet wide and 30 feet long, but the main-floor bathrooms are there, the elevator, access to the basement through the theater, and the kitchen. It was dusty, dirty, and tracked up like the ground around a salt lick. I used three changes of water in my mop bucket, scraped off the tile surfaces and used a peroxide cleaner and scrub brush on the grout joints. Mopped the entire surface four times. At the beginning of the day D had said the job looked impossible, but I actually got it looking fairly good by the end of the day. Sharee brought in the rest of the high school art show. Some of the pieces are quite clever, and there's the usual teenage angst. We treat this work just like we treat any other art work, hang it carefully, well lit, labels, and as the reception is always at five o'clock I usually stay, to watch the reaction of the kids and their parents to having their work taken seriously. A nice note today from Linda, she liked the piece I wrote last night, which makes me read it back over and I liked it too, which feels remarkably good, after all these years. I like the plain style, and how I can split off, right in there middle of something, add a grace note, and my readers follow my intent. When I wrote that line last night, No bull-pen. I wondered if anyone would get it. Of course they did, and I feel like an idiot for questioning their ability to make sense. If the language is spoken correctly, the sense is inherent. I have to go take a nap. I'm exhausted. When I wake, a few hours later, I'd left the radio on, and Bach was playing, a Partita, transcribed for guitar. It's lovely, but I have to turn it off, kill the breaker for the fridge, I need silence. A mythic goal. I sit at the island, get a short drink, roll a smoke, stare into the middle distance. Something's wrong, but I can't put my finger on it. I'm delinquent in the usual ways, I haven't talked to my parents, I haven't talked to my girls, the yard is overgrown, the books need dusting. I maintain a semblance of order by acting like I know what I'm doing, point of fact is I have no control over what is going on. I allow my concerns to motivate me, lunch, maybe a beer after work, but something is off kilter (good condition, order, I had to look this word up in several dictionaries) and I just can't put my finger on what it is. I have enough money to pay my bills, I've been careful to not offend anyone, I haven't committed an act of treason. Live in a tree-dip-pit long enough, and the past comes back to haunt you. Your many failures. I'd wipe it all away, if I could, but that's just not possible, you are what you are.