The kids and I live in a spacious, three bedroom house that I feel bad for. Really, I feel bad for any house I live in because deep down inside, despite my best intentions, I want to destroy them all.
I have two sisters who can make any space beautiful. I've seen one of them move into a moldy, shag carpeted studio apartment, and after one weekend of placing the right pillow here and the right bleach-soaked rag there she made it a clean, welcoming little abode that smelled like a cross between vanilla cupcake and functionality. Both of my sisters are the type of cleaners that would look great in a commercial about vacuum cleaners or chemical disinfectants. They could walk through a house, and counter tops and bath tubs would glow clean at their touch. At my touch they would turn into bowls of three day old macaroni and cheese.
I don't know how I got the messy gene where when I see a clean space I feel itchy all over. I went to an art opening a couple of weeks ago, and when my friend Sean and I stepped into the bright, sterile studio I wanted to walk right back out. The white floor, white walls, and the shiny silver chairs were blindingly bright. The art on display, kimonos made out of glass beads, hung from the ceiling on wires that you couldn't see. They were beautiful shirts with no one inside them, like garment ghosts floating in stasis with their arms spread to offer a hug they couldn't give. While Sean was attracted to their beauty, I felt like I couldn't breathe.
This is how I feel whenever I go into someone's house where everything is just a little too nice and in its place. My first thought is "Touch nothing" and my second thought is, "Ok, what's wrong with these people?" Seriously, that's what I think.
Sean argues that a person's outside space reflects their inside space, so if their house is a wreck then they're a wreck inside. If they have a lovely, well-kept home then they've got it together in their head. This is not the impression I get. When I walk into a messy house I feel like I have a handle on what's going on with a person. "An old pair of pants and a bowl of cereal are top of the television. AWESOME. This woman has nothing to hide about how busy, poor, and disorganized she is." How do I know she's poor? Because she can't afford a new, flat television. You can only stack cereal bowls on the old ones. I know this...'cause.
So conversely, when I walk into a house where all of the nice pants are in their polished dressers and the organic cereal is in the box where it belongs and the organic almond milk with fish oil supplements is in its proper container in the refrigerator which is in a newly redone kitchen that's fully up to date with a year warranty in case something breaks and has a smart, skinny television on the marble top counter, next to a sign that says, "Live, Laugh, Love," then I begin to wonder where they keep the horse porn. Because clearly, these people have something to hide.
Don't worry, I'm fully aware of how messed up this makes me, but I'm also aware that I'm frequently right. Though I'm a terrible house keeper, I'm a good listener and you'd be amazed how many seemingly together people open up after they have a few glasses of wine and begin to tell me how, after 18 years of being a lawyer, they've always wanted to be a drag queen and they make up for this loss in their lives by changing from a business suit to a sparkly dress at the end of the day and going to pick up other men while their wife waits at home in their immaculate house. Live, laugh, love.
But does this mean that just because some clean people live a double life, I should let my own place accumulate pants and bowls of cereal until the state has to come in and wrap yellow tape around my house? No. It just feels genetically impossible for me to properly nest anywhere.
Because for me the problem isn't just cleaning. It's deciding where things go. You can't necessarily keep everything in its place when nothing has a place. I have lived in this house for seven months now and I'm still trying to decide where to keep the ironing board. Right now it's by the laundry because it seems like that's where it should live, but it's sandwiched precariously between the table with all of the clothes on it and the dryer and every once and a while it falls over because it's standing on clothes that have fallen from the table onto the floor, so its on a bumpy surface, and while my clean sisters would have picked up those clothes by now because they have the right genes, I just keep standing the ironing board on top of the pile because my genetics tells me that I don't have time to deal with floor clothes. In fact, just imagine that every piece of furniture I own is standing on top of a pile of laundry and you'll have a good idea of what the inside of my house looks like.
The worst part is, I'm passing this on to my children. The other day I picked up Claire from school and instead of getting in, she leaned into my window and asked if we could give her friend Francois a ride.
"Uh," I said. "The car's not exactly presentable."
She peaked into the back, then looked at me. "It's not that bad. I'll just shove the spoons and the skirt under your seat."
And the sad thing was, she was right. For my car, it wasn't that bad. There were only a couple of spoons and Emma's uniform skirt in the way. No comic books, half-eaten food, bills, or coffee makers back there. Just three items that are now under my seat. Because I still haven't taken them inside.
Despite all of this, I am little by little making my house a home. Because for the first time, I live in a house that I love. It's old and has tons of character, and as my youngest sister who used to clean houses for a living once said, you can never fully clean an old New Orleans house. The stains never completely come out. I love old stains and scars on a house, dents where a kid might have rammed his tricycle into the wall in 1922, graffiti from a teenage girl in 1934. Since I love that type of stuff, I do not feel compelled to destroy this house. I won't put holes in the walls, or peel down strips of paint until the walls look like their shedding or crying.
But getting to the point where I can invite someone in to sit without having to move a blanket, a toaster and a hamster out of the way first is another story. That, I'm still working on. I mean, I guess if I wanted to I could blame it on the kids but I know that the problem is me. My whole adult life, whenever I've moved into a new place I've always felt like a wild animal forced to make a nest in a doll house. Maybe that's why there's newspaper, straw and twine all over the floor. It's like bedding at the bottom of a cage.
No Gen, you say, you may not make a nest out of twigs, leaves and saliva. You're a HUMAN. You make a nest out of particle board furniture and candles. And that weird wrought-iron thing you find at Pier One that isn't really art, but it makes for an interesting design on the wall, like a question mark suffering from appendicitis. See, that's all you need, you can have a normal house.
No. No, I don't think I can. I think if I came home and found my house looking like that I'd have no choice but to gnaw on the walls like a beast. So maybe it's best that I put art and concert posters up instead because they feel more like me. With no clothes hanging off of them. That way if Claire ever invites Francois over we won't scurry around the house shoving pets and trash under the couch. I'll lick my paws, and comb out my fur, and then Claire can introduce me.
"Francois, meet my mother. She's part wolverine. Look, there's a portion of the couch she hasn't chewed! We can have a seat, lemme just move these bowls..."
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