Monday 19 March 2012

deodorant on a bookshelf

Ok, so it's confession time.  I absolutely cannot keep a house clean.  Just can't do it.  Mind you I can clean a house until you could eat off any surface it contains.  But keeping it that way, regularly?  Waaaay beyond my skills.  I don't know how, but even after a mega purge, or even better, a move, I still find the top of my fridge piled with everything from bills to T4's to half-eaten lollipops.  The single seat is always piled with crap accumulated after any kind of shopping trip, or just socks, scarves, hats, shoes, jackets, chucked there after a trip outside.  The desktop is constantly covered with papers, hair ties, coffee cups, video games, game systems, old ink cartridges... RIGHT NEXT TO A GARBAGE CAN...

Truly, it's the utter innappropriateness of the clutter is what gets to me.  There hasn't been a meal served on my dining table in months, but rather it is the home of The Other Half's RC helicopter collection.  The laundry baskets are toy receptacles, linen storage, and occasionally comfy reading hideouts (when the picked-over socks, and t-shirts it has housed for the last three weeks are clean, anyway).

My kitchen counters serve triple duty after their intended purpose as medicine cabinet, knife storage, bread basket and recycling bag.  My inherited desk with my lovely displays has become a catch all and currently houses every single of Anna's DVD's (loose >.<), a bottle of screen cleaner, a bottle of contact solution, a bowl full of playdough shape cutters, and no less than two notebooks.

Now, I'm sure those of you reading this can relate in some way, and even have your own horror stories, and let me just say I LOVE to hear them!  To a certain extent I need to hear that my unique brand of clutter isn't as unheard of as I think it is.  Especially having grown up in a hoarder's household.

Yes, that is what makes this so damn scary.  When I was growing up, I literally thought I was a completely separate species from the well-groomed, happy, sweet-smelling creatures I attended school with.  I thought I lived in the only house on the planet that had thousands of books, architectural magazines from the 70's, a fully functioning eight track player (complete with a collection of eight tracks--country mostly), a record-cassette combo player, and a dress-up chest containing peach prom dresses and white vinyl platform boots that, had they had survived in good condition, would probably be worth money today.  My first ever game system was an original Atari that I shared with my brother (when he was in a good enough mood to let me in his room), complete with two joysticks and around forty games.  My day-to-day existence involved dodging stacks of Psychology Today's, and towers of old tobacco containers.  Towers that regularly could be stacked to well-above my own height and often the heights of anyone who had the misfortune of seeing them.  I remember playing on piles of lumber, and making a playhouse out of tree trunk rounds destined for the woodstove, and old plywood and particle board.

My childhood home could have been the blueprint for a hedge maze, there were that many little paths through the junk.  It was an adventure to sneak into my mother's bedroom when she wasn't home to look through the little drawers, and toolboxes, and nuts and bolts organizers.  Do you know how many pairs of clip-on earrings a tackle box can hold?  A frickin lot.  My mother had built her never-used double bed up on a loft, so to maximize the storage space beneath.  She stored pens and pencils, and old stationary in a desk-like structure at the back, with an old institutional mail box mounted above it.  You remember those walls of cubbies for each teacher back in school, where other teachers put memos and notes?  One of those.  I remember rearranging it's contents a couple times to suit my own sense of organization--pens with pens, sharpeners with sharpeners.  Three hole punches with three hole punches.  Yes, there was more than one of those in my home.  I don't know if it's funny or sad that she never noticed.

That bedroom was home to some truly incredible vintage dresses and shoes, and I squirreled away so much costume jewelry, I could have had the best eclectic style ever seen in a small-town high school...had I the courage the go through with the outlandish outfits I put together.  She kept perfume, and lipstick on a lovely corner shelf in beautiful little boxes made of shells, and inlaid with semi-precious stones.  She was a fan of turquoise.  As the youngest child, I had the privilege of being allowed to use makeup far earlier than my sister, just because my mom thought my combinations using her fuschia lipsticks, and bright blue and green eyeshadows were 'well executed.'  Lol. Yeah.

Growing up, I don't remember ever seeing a floor meet the wall.  Probably why I have such a thing for negative space nowadays.  Heck, for that matter, I only remember three unadorned walls ever having been in our home.  And those were all in my own and my sister's bedrooms.  Every wall from the living room through the hallway to the kitchen, laundry room, even the tiny nook where the sink was located had a book shelf mounted on it.  I remember my first taste of adult literature being the romances my older sister had collected in her room.  The old Woman's Day and Chatelaine's my mom had collected were ruthlessly cannibalized for posterboard-sized collages of eyes.  Being an actress at heart, I've always somehow been comfortable with the idea of thousands of eyes being pointed in my direction.  The books that were purloined away to my own room were the books closest to my heart.  The Only Astrology Book You'll Ever Need.  It's reached legendary status in my family both for the discussions over it and a cup of coffee, enjoyed by myself, my sister, mother and my brother's future wife, and for the way Mom and I fought over possession of it.  Had it not burned, I am sure it would be on my own bookshelf (SINGULAR) even today.  I remember finding a book of Egyptian gods after watching The Mummy, and keeping it on my own bookshelf, for the scholarly status I imagined it endowed me with.  Eventually my personal bookshelf would expand to include science fiction, astrology handbooks, a couple medical thrillers, crime fiction, Mom's ENTIRE Mercedes Lackey collection (also a hotly contested item in our household), some dry out-of-date literature on subjects that vaguely interested me... mostly science, religion and mythology, past and present--as well as my own young adult fiction, and later issues of CosmoGirl, and TigerBeat.  Yes, books were the currency of my mother's kingdom; the measure and quality of her love was determined by how engaged you could get her in conversation, with source material to back up your conclusions.

As an adult with a reasonable grasp of the English language and a thirst to read about all things-- truly a drive to know as much as I can before I die -- this is really the area of my Mom's illness I can forgive the easiest, and truly value as an integral part of my formation as a human being.  If there is one thing a person must hoard, information should be it.  It is truly a credit to her that she allowed me access to occasionally explicit, adult material to explore in the privacy of my own mind.

I guess, what I am trying to say here, is that having grown up in the dusty, unkempt, colourfuly infinite world of  hoarding, I can both appreciate having the things you need and the things you want, and yet enough space to enjoy them in.  When you see a day's worth of dirty dishes, you see a job.  When I see it, I see a choice.  To become that horrible, entempered, shy, possessive, loving, intelligent, generous, beloved woman.  Or not.  To become myself.

So, when you come over, and I apologize for the dust, the lack of a place to put your coffee, or the smell of three baskets of neglected dirty laundry, please understand that I am apologizing for her as well.  I am apologizing for the time spent teaching me the wonders of the world, rather than how to clean an oven.  And if you give me enough time to prepare, I can provide you with a lovely, clean, restful place to speak your mind, and grow.  I, as my mother-in-law once worried, am NOT a clean freak.  But if I get the chance, it's how I'd prefer you see me.