There is a Buddhist concept that involves making cleaning a spiritual practice. It is finding the extraordinary in the ordinary. It is about meditating and being in the miracle of the moment while doing something you find mundane or even repulsive. I have actually been able to practice this on more than one occasion. For real, for real! Don't laugh,(especially those of you that have seen the Queenpin's house).
The problem is most of the times cleaning has been a spiritual practice was when I was cleaning a space that didn't belong to me or the beasties. I have had a cleaning business on the side for a few years. I am so grateful for that job. Both of the places I clean are offices. No one messes them up as soon as I'm done. No one spills their juice while I'm moping the floor. My cleaning jobs also have provided money to supplement my income, and for that I am forever grateful. I clean, I pray for the man's intestines who always grosses up one of the toilets. I am often full of good feeling and in the moment-ness while I'm mopping the floor, or spraying out the urinal.
It is when I am home, in my own house that I struggle with the concept of cleaning as a spiritual practice. And it is the laundry that really drives me over the edge. Laundry is such a needy man-whore. Laundry is never satisfied and he has multiple needs. You have to wash him, and fold him, and put him away, and by the time you've finished there's a pair of dirty underwear thrown down the basement stairs by a damn beastie. Then you start all over again. Laundry is a fucking nymphomaniac, always wanting attention and effort. Except there's no pay off at the end. No big O moment when you get to sit back and smoke a cigarette and enjoy the pay off. That is really a bastard.
I have tried multiple times to stand at the dryer and fold and be spiritual, be grateful, be in the moment: fold arm to arm, now tuck arms in, now fold collar to hem, isn't this a miracle? Now put in basket and grab another shirt. Now just fuck it because this is worse than licking the asphalt from one end of my street to the other. Me and laundry just can't get our rhythm right, and anyway, you know what the rhythm method does? It reproduces! Just like my laundry. So that makes laundry a needy-transgendered-man-whore who can reproduce. And I don't mind those in real life, but I just can't get spiritual about one in my laundry room. Om....
Damn, you hit it on the head..... the laundry from the bottom of the steps continues to whisper my name, the whisper grows louder and louder until I can not ignore the shouts! And then, the earplugs arrive!!!!!! YEA for procrastination!!!!!!
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