Cleaning Up

Something gets dirty, every time I clean.

I will do ten loads of laundry, and the minute I have folded the last pair of jeans and hung the last shirt (and immediately made the beds because folding a fitted sheet, no matter how many times you've asked your mother, no matter how many youtube videos and life hacks you've watched, that particular skill just escapes you even now), there suddenly appears five socks and a washcloth. I wash dishes, and as I'm drying my hands, my son slips a fork into the sink.

For all that something gets dirty every time I clean, I still have to do it. Even when I blink and find another six loads in the basket, there is something so incredibly satisfying about cleaning. I feel so accomplished like I should get a round of applause or a medal. At least a gold star, right?

So why is it that I have such a hard time getting into the Passover cleaning frenzy? So many of my friends seem to have such a healthy love-hate relationship with this ritual. I have a friend who barely does Jewish all year long, but chooses, of all our holidays and celebrations,  to keep Pesach, scouring his kitchen, cleansing it of chametz, readying his home and himself for the holiday. 

I have such a hard time wrapping my head around that. I grew up a deeply superficial Jew. In our family, holidays were less about commandment and God, and much more about the menu. They were joyous affairs, and there was even an occasional prayer that tumbled out, as if by accidental embarrassment, but as with so much else, we tended to slip over the nitty-gritty detail with nonchalant alacrity.

So, Passover meant a last minute trip to the grocery store to find an elusive shank bone, moving the bread to the other side of the shelf to make room for the matzo,  a kitchen that smelled of dill and roasting brisket and heat, and a makeshift seder plate because we were apparently surprised that Pesach came every year, and who knew you needed a Seder plate? While we managed to pull off most of a Seder while my grandparents were around (performing the ritual that I lovingly call Dueling Zaydes), once they were gone, Passover became a wonderful excuse to dust off the soup pot and overtax the refrigerator.

There was no cleaning, other than the normal cleaning done by the housekeeper before guests came to the house. We didn't switch dishes. I could mostly guarantee that we'd at least make it through the two seders without eating bread (we didn't know from chametz so I wouldn't swear by anything there).

I'd love to claim my disconnected puzzlement with the whole concept of cleaning for Pesach the result of my mostly secular upbringing. And these days, I could use my changing and challenging health stuff as an easy excuse to merely theorize about cleaning and kashering. Either reason would be awesome. Both would be wrong.  I've become more and more observant over time. I've dived into my Judaism with joy and intention. But not in this, and I really have no clue why. Passover is my favorite holiday. With its themes of redemption and freedom and faith, how could it not be? 

So why? Why not dive in here, clean my kitchen, cleanse my home, prepare, at last, for miracles and wonder? Life gets messy; it's time to clean it up.

I have no answer to these questions. I flirt with the idea, stare at my pantry, think how my newly repaired dishwasher might aid in the kashering process.  I mentally gather the dishes in my pie safe, the "good one" that I got from one of my bubbies, and the other ones, the arty ones I bought in San Francisco a thousand years ago that I love, that have gone unused post-child because they were  really expensive and I used to have a disposable income but now not so much, and I could use these for Pesach, right? And I think about hot soapy water and the smell of Pine-Sol, which always meant clean.

So really - why not dive in here? Why not be commanded, not just to tell the story, to act as if I were there, actually there, in the narrow places, being freed, seeing the wonders and the smoke and fire, but follow the commandment to prepare for it as well? Why not?

And I sigh, shrug a little, glance at my kitchen one last time and turn back to whateverthehell I was doing. This year here; next year I will clean.

Once we were slaves, now we are free.

06 Nisan - Clean

Growing up, my mother and I would reenact the same ritual every Tuesday and Thursday morning:

         Mom:  Stacey. Go clean your room. Ann [our housekeeper] is coming.

         Me:     Silence. Incomprehension. Clean my room before the housekeeper could do it for                           me? What? You cannot be serious! (All this totally inside my own head. I never                             bothered to respond out loud, as the suggestion was so ludicrous.

And every Tuesday and Thursday morning, I would look around the mess of my room, go to school, and come back to a room that was clean-- bed made, clothes hung or folded, depending, things dusted. It would smell of Pine Sol and bleach. I thin k. At least, those are the smells I associated with Ann's days at our house.

This went on for years and years. It never changed: I'd make a mess; Ann would clean it up.

When I moved into my first apartment, I called my mother: "Ok, mom," I said, "I have a toilet bowl brush and it didn't come with instructions. How does it work." She must have laughed a good five minutes. Sadly, she was with a group of her friends, playing bridge when I called. They laughed as long and as loud as mom.

"But you never taught me! When did I ever have to clean a toilet?" I didn't come close to understanding her amusement. I just thought my embarrassment was all her fault. Of course, at eighteen, what wouldn't have been my mother's fault?

I am no longer eighteen. Thank God. I can't imagine ever being that young, that innocent and naive and world-weary, all at the same time. I have since learned a lot about cleaning: I make my own bed most mornings. Do the dishes. Dust occasionally. Pick up after my son (and tell "Clean your room; Mariola is coming today."). While cleaning the house is not on my top 1,000 things I'd like to do, I do it anyway, because it needs to be done.

My house: mostly clean. If not scrubbed and shiny, then not embarrassing. If company dropped by unexpectedly, I would be able to invite them in. This was not always the case. There have been days (weeks) (I'm pretty sure not months, but who's counting?) where the mess was barely contained within the confines of my home. Sometimes, not contained at all. Was I the only one with a "magic closet," that could just as easily turn into a "magic bedroom?" While the "public rooms" of the house were neat(ish), the closet/bedroom was more of a war-ravaged mess or a pillager's treasure trove, depending upon your perspective.

And I knew, without a doubt, that my life and my mess were connected. The more chaotic my life, the more it went spinning out of control, the more chaos at home. I prided myself, at times, that at least I could find a place to sit for me and a friend or two. That I couldn't open certain doors was a secret I thought I'd carry to the grave. (So much for secrets.)

The prompt for today is "Clean." I love that there is no further direction or instruction. I started this essay thinking I would write about the cleaning necessary for Passover-- the cabinets and dishes and pantries-- transformed, shifted, cleaned. But I cannot write about what I don't do. And I do not clean for Pesach. I think about it. I flirt with the idea of keeping kosher l'pesach-- as much as I flirt with the idea of keeping kosher. Period.

They are interesting. lovely thoughts. They are rife with spiritual nuance. I don't do 'em. As for why-- that is fodder for another essay altogether. Maybe. Maybe I'll even do it this year-- the kosher for Pesach thing, the cleaning and scrubbing and transforming thing, and I will (I'm sure) (and I say that with no cynicism or sarcasm whatsoever; I really am sure) find something rich and meaningful and holy in those actions.

But remember-- no direction, other than that the prompt is "Clean." So I go where I always go, in these cases, which is where I want to go: cleaning my mental and spiritual house. Cleaning my insides, scrubbing and polishing and transforming and renewing, all the inside stuff. That is part of this journey, just as much as switching dishes and removing chametz from my house. 

There is something incredibly powerful in diving a little deeper, shining the light a little brighter, coming clean-- really clean. Know thyself-- but not just know. Know yourself so well that you can forgive yourself your humanity, unlock the chains that keep you tethered and enslaved-- the pain and the grief and the shame, ask forgiveness of those you've harmed, and strive to do it differently, do it better, do it right as you put one foot in front of the other.

And when I can do this-- clean the house of my spirit-- there is such light, such joy! Once we were slaves; now we are free.

c Stacey Zisook Robinson

06 April 2014

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