Susanna J. Sturgis   Martha's Vineyard writer and editor
writer editor born-again horse girl

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Heroism in Real Life

December 11, 2005

OK, maybe that's a bit misleading, but doesn't it sound more interesting than "Cleaning, Day 2"?

I thought about keeping a literal web log:

9:05 AM: Susanna comes in from hanging laundry, removes CD player, ten CDs (Theodorakis' 2-CD Canto General, Tish Hinajosa's Frontejas, and seven Keelaghans -- the eighth is in the truck), two empty film containers, several expired coupons, and two coffee makers and related paraphernalia from the entertainment and caffeinating center (i.e., a yard-sale endtable drafted for the purpose), and starts to dust . . .

9:36 AM: Having re-heated tea (Assam Golden Tip, with milk) in the tea-zapper, Susanna confronts the supply corner (homemade three-by-three-foot wood box with seven shelves, bisected by a vertical divider, sitting on low, square table that came with the apartment). Her heart pounds: Can she disturb the pile on top without causing an avalanche? Should she summon a backhoe? the bomb squad?

9:39 AM: Susanna preps some floor space near the fridge and carefully, very carefully, lifts a precarious pile of posters, a sketch pad, last year's holiday cards, various writing implements, a very old postage scale (across from 1 oz. it says 8¢), and, at the bottom, Webster's Third International Dictionary, which she never opens because there's too much junk on top of it.

The supply corner took about as long as the checkbook did yesterday. Among the treasures discovered: several sheafs of recyclable printer paper, several manuscripts I'd lost track of, a bumper sticker that says "Your silence will not protect you" (Audre Lorde); two mailing envelopes for 5 1/4-inch floppies (remember 5 1/4-inch floppies?), and a black ballpoint pen that still works. Also two yellow pads with hand-scrawled notes for The Mud of the Place. Mud notes turn up whenever I turn over a rock. I have no recollection of making any of them, though it's not hard to see how, composted and reworked ad nauseam, they contributed to the final draft. Did I write the whole thing in a blackout? Maybe it's postpartum amnesia, and that's why I'm so sure that I can write a second novel and a third; more than that, even. The muses are laughing up their voluminous sleeves.

Cleaning is a drag, but having cleaned is intensely satisfying. From the entertainment/caffeinating center to the pantry to the supply corner, order reigns -- a casual order, one that wouldn't pass any drill sergeant's or camp counselor's inspection, but it soothes my eye. I know what I've got and where it is. And the soundtrack of this particular cleaning was stellar: Rich Warren's Midnight Special (great public radio show out of Chicago), followed by a recorded Connie Kaldor concert.

However.

If this fall cleaning proceeds on its current course -- clockwise around my office/kitchen -- only one modest bookshelf stands between me and My Desk. Consider, to my left: a scanner covered with a pillowcase from which a heap of papers is spilling onto the floor (somewhere down there is my copy of The 9/11 Commission Report, which I stopped reading around p. 200). In front: Morgana IV, with all her attendant wires, cables, office supplies, and miscellaneous tchotchkes (I should get up and check the spelling in Webster's Third International Dictionary but today I laugh at typos). To my right: a bookshelf crammed with books, binders, and barely sorted folders, topped with a dangerous heap on which rest my phone, a tape recorder, desk calendar, and several years' worth of phone books. Behind: my reference books -- these are actually pretty orderly, because I use them all the time.

That's where the heroism comes in. Will Susanna proceed valiantly toward the monstrous mess, or will she backtrack into the bedroom, where nothing bites?

Watch this space . . .

 

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