Digging Out

Yesterday I tackled the basement, again. It is a huge, monstrous mess down there, and just terrible Feng Shui to be living on top of that mess. I am a bit of a pack rat, albeit a Jekyll and Hyde one. I go through phases where I can't let go of anything without leaving claw marks on it (typical Crab) and then phases where I hate clutter with a venomous passion, tossing things out while mentally screaming, “You're ruining my life!” Right now I think I'm in the latter, but a somewhat milder version of it. I am on a bit of a cleaning spree, and I received a wonderful new sewing machine last Wednesday without so much as giving it a trial run because I've been preoccupied with cleaning and organizing.

And yet, I have very little to show for it, beyond the main house being presentable enough for company again, redeemed from the junkie-flophouse squalor it descended to over the holidays when I was ill with some kind of lingering food poisoning. The basement hardly looks changed. It is going to take a long time to dig out from under the years and years of depression and lethargy that I've somehow managed to break through. I really shouldn't expect anything less.

Housecleaning, and by extension, homekeeping, makes me crazy because of the endlessness of it. I vacuum the rug and it just needs vacuuming again, cook a meal only to have to cook again, do laundry only to need to do it again the next week. And on and on. The over and over of life makes me despair a bit. Well, a lot. I seriously think like this: “You mean I have to brush and floss twice a day, every day, for the rest of my life? Why don't I just kill myself right now?” You'd think it would make me desperate to get out of samsara, and to practice like my hair's on fire, like the saying goes. But I run into the same issues with practice. The over and over of it makes me want to flee with the desperation of a caged animal. I am incapable of seeing it for the freedom it offers, and it becomes an obligation instead. I don't see everything this way. I never think, “Oh, I need to cuddle with my puppy? But I'll just need to do it again tomorrow!” So it is clear that perception is at work here, and that my job is to change that, or rather, to plant the seeds to see it change for me. It's wisdom that I truly need.

For now, I focus on being present. On doing things one step at a time. For me this means a lot of surrender. I surrender to the present moment and release my fears of being trapped. I do the dishes in order to do the dishes, like Thich Nhat Hahn writes. Not to get them out of the way or the task over with, but to embrace that moment as life itself. As freedom itself. This is what I aspire to.