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Wednesday, March 19, 2003 Somewhere during the course of the last few years I discovered that I like living in a reasonably clean, reasonably orderly living space. Like it, as in prefer it. The kind of thing hetero males not suffering from terminal analness aren't supposed to do without raising the terrible spectre of Felix Unger. I haven't lived with roommates a whole lot in this life of mine. The last time, maybe eight, nine years ago, I shared the third floor of a three-family building in West Cambridge, Mass. with my best friend for a year and a half. We both pitched in, the flat generally remained in presentable condition. Easy, essentially painless. Living on my own in a small living space, cleaning was a periodic but doable pain in the butt. And in a larger space? Before too long, I'd find myself in trouble. ‘Cause I simply don't want to devote much time to that stuff. I'll vacuum every couple of weeks. I'll maintain the bathroom. I'll wash the dishes, keep the kitchen from becoming a disaster area. Once in a long while, when the accumulation of dust begins making book titles difficult to read, I'll go from room to room with a feather duster, but this is not my idea of a good time -- ask me to do it more than once in a while or ask me to wash windows, scrub floors, wash walls, go over various living space surfaces with a damp cloth, etc., then I'm in deep shit. My last place in Cambridge, a two-bedroom in the top floor of an old Victorian house that served as home for nearly six years, was a large enough space that keeping it from gradually morphing into my own personal version of a toxic waste dump took more time and energy that I was willing to put into it. Which meant, as time went on, that I had a decision to make. The residents on the other two floors had people come and clean every week or two, which left their living spaces looking pretty good. I began noticing that a substantial number of other people I knew did the same thing. I was making enough money that taking on that expense twice a month would not be painful, would not be a bad exchange for getting someone else to do work I didn't want to be saddled with, and at some point I began asking some folks for recommendations. Got one, called her, she began showing every other week. All of a sudden, I found myself in a different living space. A cleaner one, more comfortable. I discovered I liked it. And with the place clean, I began to see that the problem wasn't simply cleaning but dealing with clutter, with having too much stuff (the legacy of growing up in a family of professional pack rats), an issue I gradually began dealing with. In spite of those extremely positive benefits, hiring a cleaning person turned out to be emotionally complicated, much more than I'd anticipated, to the point that I noticed I was being careful who I chose to disclose it to. As if it were something to be ashamed of, like I was afraid some people might think badly of me. Like I'd suddenly become the enemy of the proletariat, one of those who would be lined up and shot when the revolution finally arrived. Part of it did have to do with nervousness around being judged through the filter of have/have-not mentality. And if that were all it had been, it wouldn't have had the nagging, persistent power it did. It baffled me, leading to discussions about it with friends. And after conversations with one or two who shared my ethnic background (Irish), I realized that part of what was going on had to do with family matters. Namely, I was the first person in mine that I was aware of who had crossed this particular line. ‘Cause in my Irish-American gene pool, it was far more likely that people would work as a house-cleaner than hire someone to clean. And hiring someone instead of doing it all yourself would be seen as insufferably uppity. Like I'd suddenly become an example of the lace-curtain Irish, the kind who walked around with their noses in the air and were disliked and envied by those who worked menial jobs and had ten or twelve kids. ‘Cause a person who puts on pretensions of financial comfort is more likely to squeeze through the eye of a needle than to get into Heaven, blah blah blah. That seemed to get at the root of the issue and relieved some of the mental hooha I had going. When I came to Madrid, I found myself somewhere where hiring someone to come in and help with housekeeping seemed to be a part of the culture. Even Spanish instructors of mine, people who made very little income, did it. So that I eventually started doing it myself. And now every two or three weeks a bright, extremely nice 30ish Polish woman named Catalina shows up, spends two and a half half to three hours doing work I really don't want to do, for which I am fervently grateful. To the point where I will essentially arrange my schedule so that I can be here to let her in whenever it is she wants to show, and am grovelingly happy when she walks in the door. She showed up this morning, early. Ungodly early, considering today is a holiday, a día de fiesta, in Madrid -- one more in the infinite number of holidays they have here, this one being el Día del Papa (Father's Day), meaning both Father's Day as it exists in the States and the day of Saint Joseph, the father of all the saints. Most stores and businesses are closed, lots of newsstands are locked up. People were out all night partying here in the barrio, and I mean all night, until past 7 a.m. Catalina knocked on my door at 8:20. I figured I'd use having to get up for that as an excuse to get myself out the door to the gym, something that hasn't happened much during these last few weeks. Which I did. I'd heard something yesterday about this being a día de fiesta but did not get the full import. (You'd think I'd learn after 2+ years here.) When I went out at 8:30, I found the streets nearly empty, the plaza down the street devoid of the usual weekday morning flow of people the news kiosk closed. Only a few hardy souls rode the Metro, some of whom appeared to have been out all night, their heads forward on their chests, snoozing. I got out in the barrio de Salamanca, the ritzy district where the gym is, made the chilly several block walk. Hardly any traffic cruised the streets, hardly any people walked the sidewalks. And when I reached the gym, I found it closed and dark. Bugger. I found an open newsstand, picked up a paper, noticed an open corner café, stopped in for a cup of espresso and some churros. When I walked in, the guy behind the counter was the only other person in the joint. Someone walked in right after me and planted themselves at a table in the rear corner of the small space. When the counter guy dealt me my food and drink, I sat myself at another table. And then people started trickling in. Neighborhood folks, mostly older males, small in physical stature, white-haired, unaccompanied. A few workers, dressed in the one-piece blue or gray outfits that the local painters, plasterers, etc. wear. And into that walked a 50-something couple, him in a suit, her in one of the most massive fur coats I've ever seen, probably residents of the ‘hood. They found a pair of stools at the counter and joined the rest of the souls hovering along the counter waiting for caffeine. Chatter about sports, head-shaking about the American government and its madcap hijinks. The sound of the espresso machine, the clatter of cups/saucers. The local version of the morning routine. When I stepped back outside, the morning air had lost some of its bite, the day promising to warm up nicely. Still no one about. On returning home, I cranked up the computer, sat down to do some work. Outside, the barrio has been slowly waking up. Teeny dogs, out for walkies with their people, yelp at each other. The construction lot across the street, relatively quiet this last week since the big machinery disappeared, is blessedly empty and still. The cafes have been slowly opening their doors one by one. Stereos have started up in one or two pisos, their windows open so that music drifts with the late morning breeze. The local equivalent of cherry bombs have gone off a street or two away, someone taking the holiday thing to heart. The occasional car drives through. In another hour or so, the cafes and bars in the plaza will begin putting out tables and chairs, people will sit down and pass the afternoon in conversation, enjoying the sunlight and clear skies. Life will carry on, despite the strange doings at the international level. ********************** What's that? You claim the French didn't do squat to help the American Revolution? Au contraire. ********************** And, finally, the last page. (Thanks, Gill.) rws 12:51 PM [+]
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