It turns out that the dark corners of my living space are not that interesting, and altogether dusty. Which might surprise anybody who has been paying attention and thought that I was a compulsive cleaner.

Oh, I am a compulsive cleaner. It soothes me. Hoovering is my balm. But it works more like this: If I don’t see it, it doesn’t count as dirty. Which explains a lot about my apartment, about under my sink, between my fridge and my stove, and on top of the light behind my bed. I don’t see it. I could see it. But I don’t. That’s what I’ve learned in the past week. I don’t see a lot of the things I could see. But I did see a lot of nail holes and a lot of cracks in my walls and I’ve been nail-yanking and wall-spackling.

It occurs to me that my cleaning habits have not really changed since I was 12. I cleaned the same way then. Throw out what you will never need (when I was 12, or, let’s say 15, I might have emptied the trash I kept under my desk more often). Hide what you might need but don’t use. And clean what you see. Clean often what you see. It’s this way that the computer monitor is almost always nearly spotless but the computer itself is covered in dust and sits on a shelf crowded with CDs, peripherals, and wires.

It’s funny that I still maintain that style of cleaning, a keeping up appearances cleaning, when, for the most part, I’m the only one here to notice.

SS