December 31, 2001

NEATNESS IS FINE, UP TO A POINT

I spent Christmas morning cleaning my microwave. This is not a plea for sympathy; later in the day I met a friend for brunch and then we went to see Lord of the Rings. It was a very satisfactory day.

No, I mention the microwave only because it's part of a pattern. A couple of times in recent weeks I've had to wait briefly to get into a friend's car while the car's owner removed the stuff that had piled up in the front seat. My car has stuff in the front seat too -- a book of maps, my sunglasses, the phone book, among other things. Why is that true, when it didn't used to be? Obviously, because I live alone, and only rarely does anyone sit there.

It takes a while to notice how much living alone alters how one lives (even if you like it, as I do). Or rather, living alone reveals for the first time how much living with others alters who you really are.

My mother believed that neatness is a virtue and I always thought I had acquired it as a matter of course. She never had to tell me to pick up my room. When I was married and raising a child, I was the one who fought a long and generally unsuccessful battle against their untidiness, because I was the neat one.

But it's not true. Every time I decide to leave something out instead of putting it away, I am proving that convenience and accessibility matter more to me than neatness. Why put the clean dishes back in the cupboard? They're handy in the dish drainer. Why file papers? If you always put the one you've just needed back on the top of the pile, then the ones you need most often will always be near the top.

I have seven separate piles of paper on my dining-room table. They're on the table because all the space on the desk and the paperwork bookcase next to it is already occupied.

My ex-husband used to do the same thing, and it drove me crazy. There was a broken carburetor on one of my kitchen counters, along with the pieces he thought he needed to fix it, and over time the little pile acquired some other miscellaneous pieces of car. It was there for nearly 20 years and he wouldn't move it until we went on sabbatical and rented the house. When we got back a year later I was very careful to colonize that space for kitchen purposes before he remembered where he had put the carburetor.

But you know, as long as you aren't bothering anybody else, clutter works just fine. And I can find stuff when I need it, which is exactly what he used to say.

If I'm expecting company, I can bring the place up to company specs in an hour or two. But keeping it that way takes half an hour or so a day, including the deadweight loss of putting things away and taking them out again. What's the point?

I'm not talking about cleaning. Cleaning is functional, and gets done as needed -- hence the Christmas microwave -- though my standards for what's needed are rather more relaxed than they used to be. I don't think I have to rush to sweep up each blossom that falls from the bougainvillea tree. And I've conceded that I can't keep up with the cat fur. The new cat, who has been with me about a year, is a part-Himalayan with long silky floaty fur that gets onto and into everything. Getting it off the living-room rug, one small section at a time, is a major undertaking. I did it for Thanksgiving.

You might think there is an opportunity here for a splendid New Year's resolution, but if so I have no intention of making it. I'm cozy and comfortable and efficient and that suits me.

But every now and then I wonder what my mother would have thought.

(675 words)