March 29, 2020

Change of Plans

Cleaning the entry ways and kitchen
floors with a pungent bleach solution was
not on the agenda for this morning.

It is the writing hour, not the cleaning
hour, and in a house with small children,
one does not get the writing hour back.

But here I am, squatting in my house robe,
disinfectant potion in hand,
swabbing the tiles with all I've got.

This is not normal. This is not something
I would normally do in the absence of dog
or kid pee. I crave order, yes, but not this.

Normally, germs command little of my
attention. We wash hands religiously, of course,
but if things are tidy, I don't worry, much.

We scour the bathrooms and wash the
sheets at regular intervals and keep our
cooking spaces clean. That's within reason.

But my floors are another story.  I sweep
and vacuum as needed (a lot), and I enforce
a strict no-shoes-in-the-house rule. A must.

But beyond that, I figure the purpose of floors
is to build immune systems. I could write a book:
How to Build Immunity from the Ground Up.

But this morning seems different. This
morning, cleaning the floors – and during the
writing hour no less – seems, somehow, essential.

Perhaps it's all in my head. Perhaps I'm
just reaching for some sense of control,
some way to make sense of it all.  Perhaps.

Or perhaps it's essential that I do what
I can. I can clean the floors. That, too, is
within reason, even if it's not on the agenda.