I Keep Trying to Clean my Room

Maybe it’s because I can’t escape the bits and bobs about politics that manage to fit through the nooks and crannies of my life, but I keep thinking about something Jordan Peterson said in an interview or lecture on not worrying about the economy if you can’t even clean your room. The point being that we should all focus on getting our own lives in order, for a stable individual should positively affect the individuals around her. They, in turn, might get their own stuff together and go on to positively affect the individuals surrounding them. It’s like that Fabergé shampoo commercial from the 1980s: “and they told two friends about it … and so on and so on.”

I keep trying to clean my room—and, truth be told, the driveway. We got a lot of snow last night, so the yellow shovel and I got reacquainted today.

February is a long month. Yes, it has fewer days than others, but it is the month I hate most. January is coming in a close second—for a couple of reasons.

Last night, I dreamed that I lost my wedding ring. It didn’t seem to bother me much, and I went out and bought another. The funny thing is that losing my wedding band and engagement ring becomes a more real possibility each day. Since October 1^st, I’ve lost 18 pounds through intermittent fasting and eating mostly meat, so both rings have started twirling around on my finger. I’ve never taken off my wedding ring, and 26 years ago, when Dennis slid it on to the digit next to my pinkie, the thought of it falling off would have horrified me. Life in the intervening years, though, has changed me. With a wave of my hand and a blithe, “material goods; it’s just material goods,” I often dismiss qualms about getting rid of something of sentimental value.

If you’ve read something similar from me in the past, raise your hand. The fact that I keep returning to the same subjects is not lost on me.

I know why I write: to stay sane, but, as you likely know (raise that hand if you do), I often wonder why I share anything I write. The same goes for my photos and art. I grew up in a home that stressed doing and saying the right thing, or more accurately, looking like you’re doing the right thing and saying in public only what was deemed acceptable. In a way, it didn’t matter how rotten the core of the apple was as long as the outside shined. I’ve never been able to escape that philosophy (jettison it?), and I’m not convinced I want to, but still.

I do know that there is truth in these words of Sally Mann:

We are spinning a story of what it is to grow up. It is a complicated story and sometimes we try to take on grand themes: anger, love, death, sensuality, and beauty. But we tell it all without fear and without shame.

I know that I can’t tell it all without fear and without shame. The closest I come is showing someone an abstract, mixed media work of art I’ve created and explaining what I see in it, then changing the subject before they ask too many questions.