The Work
It’s Monday. I’m late in the writing, for no good reason, actually. I have started taking Sunday’s off, which is why I had no words to offer yesterday. Today, I slept in, had a few things to do, and thus I’m late. I used to take off the entire weekend, but then Covid hit and what was there to do but write. Now, I’m heading back. Thus, the Sunday hiatus. Anyway, here I am with a few words, and these are about my cleaning/renovation projects.
I’m making good progress. Painting doors, removing old, beat-up furniture, and on Friday I cleaned the doors to the work room. There are two double doors, and one single door. They’re metal and painted white. They were dirty with grease, grime, and mold. They’re clean now thanks to a mixture of dish soap, water, and vinegar. I needed the latter to defeat the sooty mold growing on the door in soft gray patches. It was tedious work, but tedious seems to be the nature of any work involving cleaning.
My observation on the end result of all this cleaning and painting, however, is that no one will notice because, well, everything will look as it should. Nice, sparkly, clean. As the work progresses, I expect more of the same. Rewarding to me, because I have a good idea of the before and after, but of little import to the casual visitor. I suppose that’s okay because in the end it’s my space and I want to be comfortable in my space, and in addition, keeping it up is a nice way to honor the memory of the woman who helped make our house a home, my late wife. That may be the best reason of all.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver's Tale