We were cleaning last night until 2:00. It's interesting walking the world with a sleep deprived brain again. The air shimmers sometimes while I'm on my hands and knees, scrubbing a bit of tiled kitchen floor and it's old times and it's an old kitchen where no amount of scrubbing will be sufficient. When I have a big cleaning job, like this old house I'm in, my remembered cleaning rules kick in and it's impossible to shake them. My mother was raised by a very disturbed military man. She raised us with the same idea of what clean meant. Clean meant scrubbing a floor on your hands and knees. Clean meant caustic fumes and burning fingers and eyes and elbow grease. Clean meant if you don't do a job right why do it at all and it always meant do it again. I don't believe I ever washed a window once in any of her houses. There was always a spot. Do it again. It meant searching out dirt with my microscope eyes. Dust was the enemy. Everything always needed to smell like caustic. A burning of the dirty things. Ammonia, bleach, sometimes kinder smelling things like Mr.Clean or Pinesol. I still use bleach to this day, despite having chemical sensitivities. I can't help it. 

What clean looks like is different to everyone. We'll never be able to prove it isn't sleep deprivation but I swear that I've been haunted by two old women this week, my mother, and my secret mother, S. The one I adopted, S, hated dust. Now I've heard that from people so I can't show you that proof of a little post death communication. But sometime near 1:00, while I was waiting for the next section of floor to dry, long after I had dusted every surface in this surface filled house, and every carefully dusted each unicorn, ceramic frog, and porcelain fairy and picture, she said,  what about the cabinets?   You've got to wash all of the kitchen cabinets. Sure enough, when I searched with my tired microscope eyes there was dust I hadn't noticed in the grooves of the cabinets. There are 32 cabinet doors in this open island style kitchen. She was very insistent. I got chills on the back of my neck and a headache. Bleach fumes? Exhaustion? Or an old woman determined to have her house look just the right way for her company coming tomorrow afternoon. I know what I think. I think I've got a lot of cabinets to scrub down today. I know what I said- I said I see the dust. I have to finish the floor and I have to get some sleep but I'll do them. I  said- you do know this is true love don't you lady? 

Yes I said it out loud. The dog didn't mind. 

Today clean looks like scrubbing more dust off. It smells like Dawn dish washing soap and lemon pledge. It smells like fresh humid foggy air, less dog scented and less mold scented than when I got here. Clean feels like exhausted with miles to go. The clean I am longing for is freshly washed sheets and a bed with my name on it waiting for me at home. The clean I'm longing for is air with a little less humidity coming into my lungs, and a large body of water if I can find one before I land on my own streets again. The clean I long for is dirtier than the clean either of my two haunting women would demand. 

What does clean mean to you? Are you comfortable with clutter? Do you need your surfaces to shine and your writing pages stacked neatly on a dusted desk? What does clean smell like? I am still trying to find my own relationship with clean that isn't a festival of triggers and old mean memories of being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to dust something again, or re-wash the dishes, or re-fold the clothes. I am trying to find a clean with a kinder eye. It took me 52 years to understand why there are almost no towels or washcloths in my house. Old memories lying in the careless folds of a towel not folded military style. I still make beds with hospital corners though I get mad every time I do it. Some ghosts aren't actually on the outside, they are just old voices playing in my head. It still feels good and haunted. I long for a clean that belongs to me. Cut lemons in the water pitcher. Clean surfaces. A little creative clutter and my own, non- haunted sense of order. 

Have you ever felt haunted but a person or a repeating thought or old static buzzing critics in your ear, looking over your shoulder while you write? Ever stepped in a place that you knew right away was a bad place? Or a good place? Ever heard voices that weren't there? 

Do you believe in ghosts? I'd like to say I don't but the back of my neck tells me different. I'm okay with it. 

I've noticed that my life long fear of death has turned into a fear of pancreatic cancer, a fear of dying in terror, a fear of not being able to let go when it's time, a fear of being trapped once the body is used up and there is only great pain and fear left in the hospital bed. When I told my daughter I don't want to die like that- she said- well okay lady but I might not be the best person to be in charge.I'm really impulsive. She made me laugh like she always does. I sure do like her. 

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This is what clean looks like...or...smells like

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She never thought she'd never get that stain out

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When they talk to me I ...or when she talks to me I...

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She was not afraid of death she was afraid of...or she is...or I am.... or negate it- I am not afraid of___ but death scares me. 

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Life is denied by lack of attention, whether it be to cleaning windows or trying to write a masterpiece.

Nadia Boulanger

Fresh from the land of sleep deprivation, some lemon pledge scented prompts. If these don't work for you- how is your body feeling today? Did you sleep enough? Do your limbs feel light or heavy? What happens when you move. Are you feet ready to walk or dragging you down in exhaustion. You could write about what your body feels like. Or to this good body- a phrase of Jen's I just love that always reminds me to appreciate and notice what is happening in this body that still will clean a floor on hands and knees even when one of my knees is being difficult. This good body that is allowing me this time of great work and still operating despite being sick, despite grief, despite a lack of sleep that normally would have my heart racing. That's a good body. That's some grace. 

I hope this day is good to you and your creative.