2.07.2011

Modern Pioneer



"There is a charm, even for homely things, in perfect maintenance." -Louis Auchincloss

I spent a lot of my weekend reclaiming my home. It seems that increasing busy-ness without hiring a cleaning person or someone else to pull my old weight equals disaster on the home front! Every single realm in my home dominion has been out of whack since the holidays. The laundry has been a continuous pile either on the dirty or the to be put away side. My fridge was emitting strange odors. The pantry was a pile of unorganized goods, my floors all had telltale crumbs from lack of vacuuming, and my car was looking like salt stain was the chosen paint color. It was all contributing to a level of disorganization that was making me internally grumpy and out of whack. Outer calm reflects inner peace right?

Every day chores are easy to put on the back burner when other fires need to be put out. But I have to say it felt really nice to focus on my home and making it livable again. It made me feel a much needed sense of respect for what I have around me each and every day. Plenty literally oozes out of every drawer and cupboard and I think it's easy to not see the forest for the trees sometimes. I have talked about the concept of stewardship here before and it's something I truly believe in. I should act as the steward for the things I have, responsibly managing and caring for the immediate world around me right down to the oil in my car and the crumby carpet underfoot. It doesn't send a very good message to my children, or my commitment to the environment, if I let my "toys" and plenty pile up or break.

My recent lack of stewardship and home management was also feeling like a black eye thanks to the book I'm currently reading called The Egg and I. Set in the 1940s and written about that same time, it tells the story of the hilarious escapades of Betty MacDonald, who married a chicken farmer and moved to the middle of nowhere beneath the Cascade mountains on the coast of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. The book is a fun read thanks to the wit of the storyteller, but it also makes one mindful of just how much home improvement and conveniences have taken place since the farm days of the 40s. It makes me realize just how good I have it around my house, how absolutely doable housework and home management have become. I have so many time saving devices at my disposal. Washing machine, dishwasher, hot water to name a few! We have a leaky sink faucet in the kitchen right now and we've been turning off the water directly at the pipes under the sink until we fix it so we don't waste, and I found myself getting so annoyed with the hassle of having to lean down to switch it on to wash my hands or soak a dish....never mind the fact that this woman in my novel had to walk out in the pouring rain to pump herself a measly pail of freezing cold water! She then had to boil it pot by pot with a wood burning stove for any washing or bathing required. What is wrong with me?! How easy I have it peeing indoors and touching buttons to cook food, suck up dirt, wash and dry my clothes and dishes! I fear I would have made a terrible pioneer.

We do live in a more complex world in terms of other commitments and expectations-and I feel women particularly face this modern burden. Most of us are no longer one loaf of bread short of starving or one pair shy of wearing dirty underwear everyday. We have plenty to juggle. In the literal sense of the phrase. And I'm thinking in modern times that's more the appropriate definition of stewardship. Juggling the plenty, making it count and matter rather than shoving it in a closet or rusting in the yard unused. Today's home manager isn't up at 4 am letting rolls raise and hanging wash by the coals of the wood stove, but instead has to master time management both inside and outside the home and using the words I have enough. This role might not be as physically taxing or as linked to survival as the kind played by Betty MacDonald and the millions of other housewives and managers of the recent past, but I'm not so sure it isn't just as important to happiness and a sense of succeeding on the home front. Here on Summerhill Drive, I guess I am a modern pioneer.

(Above images from Corbis. com. Aren't they fantastic?)