Some Answers
A couple of weeks ago (as you may or may not remember), I
posted about how much I dislike housework. Now, I have a few answers for myself - or at least some insight. Here's the story. For two weeks, I was on bedrest (well, I was supposed to be on bedrest, but I was more like on couchrest/trying not to do strenuous stuff and mostly succeeding, though my husband does think I was a bit selective about this). This meant that my husband was left with all of the housework to do. And you know what - the dirty floors started to bother me. I wished that I could wash them. And then the stuff messing up the whole living room started to bother me - I wanted to organize and put it all away. Then the dishes started getting on my nerves; I just wanted to wash them and scrub the counters, and the garbage needed to be taken out to the dumpster... and so on and so on. This taught me that I really do value a clean and orderly home (!) and that I actually want to do the many tasks that lead to said home. I am completely shocked and surprised with myself. Of course, now that I'm back in commission, the floors are dirty again; the dishes are piling up and the garbage needs to go out again. But I still feel better just knowing that somewhere deep inside of me is a person who craves order and cleanliness, and is willing to do what needs to be done in order to get it!
The book Meme - I was Tagged!
1. Name one book that changed your life: The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath. It was the first, and maybe only time that I read a book and saw myself in it.
2. One book you've read more than once: The Chosen by Chaim Potok - I can't count how many times I've read this one, and it also makes me cry every time.
3. One book you'd want on a desert island: 250 Ways to Play Solitaire (but only if I also had a deck of cards).
4. One book that made you laugh: The Outside Chance of Maximillian Glick by Morley Torgov - the opening paragraph where he talks about how he remembers his bris is hysterical.
5. One book that made you cry: I know this is probably a cliche, but the sixth Harry Potter book - the funeral scene makes me cry whenever I read it.
6. One book you wish you'd written: The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner - I love his command of language, especially how he strings words together in the second section.
7. One book you wish had never been written: Portrait of a Lady by Henry James. I literally threw this one across a room 60 pages in.
8. One book you are currently reading: I recently finished The Trail To Tranquility by Lazer Brody (of Lazer Beams).
I've borrowed the rest of these categories from MC Aryeh's post on this meme...
9. One book I would recommend to others: The Solitaire Mystery by Jostein Gaarder - a really great and fast moving story that also makes you think about life and meaning and that stuff.
10. One of the most overrated books I have read: In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaadje - A Canadian classic, but one I found extremely unreadable.
11. One Book I Feel I Should Have Read But Probably Never Will:: Middlemarch by George Eliot - I don't have the patience for anything Victorian these days...
12. One book that expanded my cultural horizons: I can't think of any at the moment. Oh, maybe the Joy Luck Club? Stupid answer, I know.
13. The book I plan to read next: No Idea, whaever I come across, I suppose.
That's it for the book Meme - thanks to Ayala for tagging me and sorry I didn't notice until today.
Thoughts and Reflections
I've been wanting to comment on
what was the latest blog entry over at Beth's House when I began this post, but every time I start to comment, I feel like I have too much to say, and that I want to write a whole entry myself on the subject. So, without further ado, here it is.
It may be because something else, something more fundamental is missing in my life, that I don't agree with Beth. On the other hand, it could be just a simple gut reaction that dates back to some other, more angry time in my life. But, the fact is that I don't agree. I wish I did. I wish I saw the beauty in keeping my house clean. It does bother me when it's not, but the spiritual aspect is just not happening for me at the moment.
I've hinted to this before (I mentioned it in passing a while ago), housework bothers me in a basic way. I hate that it's never done. I feel drained by the thought of constantly doing and redoing the same thing over and over again. I appreciate a clean organized space, and maybe if it came naturally for me, I would be better at it. On the other hand, that just sounds like another excuse. I have to do it. I don't have to enjoy it, though that would make doing it a lot easier. I just feel like I don't really get a chance to sit back and enjoy my organized space before it gets disorganized again.
Doing my best is not what interests me at the moment, either. I know that I'm capable of doing it and keeping it done. But I feel like in order to do that, I have to keep it on my mind all the time, and the prospect of that is just terrifying to me. I've made lists, and even kept to them for at least a few days at a time, but it always winds up back at the beginning. Should I just accept that it doesn't come natually for me and work at it until it does? Is that really where I want to be expending my energy at this time? Or should I davka be looking for the spiritual side of it so that I can infuse it with meaning and make it part of what I WANT to be doing?
Then, there's another aspect of what Beth wrote; that is, the idea of growing into oneself. I'm always scared of every new stage of life. Or, at least, I'm not ready when it comes. Why am I trying to slow time? What am I hoping to accomplish by dwelling on the past, and refusing to face the present? Why am I pulling at the reins of my own life? I want to fly, don't I? I want to feel like I'm getting somewhere.
Then I think that maybe these two ideas are connected for me. I've always felt that looking for the spirituality in mundane tasks is possibly something that is supposed to be done, but at the same time, it feels like a little "too much" to me. It feels too "flighty and flowy", as some people would term it, and I'm not one of those people. But maybe the fact that I keep telling myself that is the very thing that's holding me back. Maybe the fact that I keep trying to keep my feet on the ground is what's burying my ambition. Perhaps I need to start flying in order to fly. Maybe this seems obvious to some of you, but it's not at all obvious to me. All this time, I've been thinking that I have to grow in a certain direction, but really I have to be undirected in my growth. H
