Dust
Henry David Thoreau did not like everyday things, at least not ones that might cause clutter. He had three pieces of stone on his desk but was “terrified” that he might need to dust them so he threw them out the window. He feared that dusting objects would keep him from the more important job of “dusting the furniture of [his] mind.”
Thoreau and I have that in common—a dislike of dusting. And I can agree with this theory that many of us could be improving our lives in some way with the time we spend dusting the objects that clutter our spaces. Or perhaps an ordered house is a sign of an ordered mind and dusting (and scrubbing and sweeping) makes manifest the ways we are cleaning up the mind. I know for me if my house is out of order it is because I fee disinclined to engage with my everyday surroundings. I’m usually low on energy or motivation—feeling bad personally or physically. Yet, when I begin to feel better I have to order my house before I can do anything else. It’s the first sign that I’m ready to set things right—and yet what great things could I accomplish if I had less of a house to clean? Less books to dust? Less clothes to wash?
And yet here are a few of my favorite things. A vase of sticks I collected with my son. A bottle of stones from the Oregon coast. An urn of red desert sand. They are a bit dusty, but each time I look at them something blossoms in my mind and a sweet wind dusts the furniture there—an Adirondack chair, I think, sitting empty under a pink pink cherry tree. I think if the dust on these things gets me to open the window, its done its job well. There is no need to actually to toss the items out.
No comments:
Post a Comment