Housecleaning to beat writers block? Photo by Melissa O'Donohue
The assignment was clear. I knew exactly what I wanted to accomplish. The research was done. Ideas and content were plentiful. I had everything I needed to complete the writing project except the words.
So I did the most logical thing I knew to do:
I vacuumed my living room.
Lo and behold, somewhere between the cat fur and dead skin cells was the opening line I had been looking for. I ran back to my computer and typed it out. Then I moved on to the dishes where I was approached by the second sentence. In the chandelier cobwebs I found three or four more lines.
I was on a roll!
Before I knew it, the piece was done and my house was clean.
Writer's Block
We all have days when the words refuse to come out to play. They can be quite anti-social sometimes. Staring at a white screen and a blinking cursor will make you peevish. Doing something else while still pondering what you're writing leads to distinguished sentences. As soon as you start a different project, the words will decide to behave.
Have you ever procrastinated yourself into working? Have you found unproductivity fuels productivity? Share your story in the comments.
PRACTICE
Clean your house for ten minutes. I'll even keep time for you. While doing so, write about a housekeeper with a dream. Use the last five minutes to let the words flow freely. When you're finished, post your practice in the comments.
Very important instructions: When the words start coming, stop cleaning. Leave the grass half-cut, the soapy dishes floating, and the mirror dripping Windex. Write down what you've got before you go back to your cleaning.
I used to sit with the dead, back when folks would still pay
you to do it. A funeral home isn’t so
bad once you get used to the smell – they pipe in enough air freshener to mask
a skunk – and then the flowers, so many flowers, all starting to die
themselves, but once you give in to it, it’s not terrible.
I took to wearing a little vanilla extract under my nose. And I brought my books. I read a lot of Faulkner aloud to my charges,
and Hemmingway if they seemed that kind of person – blunt and not afraid of a
good fight.
The kids, though, I wouldn’t sit with the kids. That kind of grief will seep into a person,
will get into your cells, and you’ll never look at kids the same way
again. So I wouldn’t do it.
But that ended, oh, twenty years ago, I guess. You die in a room full of people and then you
get left alone till they put you in the ground.
I don’t want to be left alone, but
I don’t know who I’d tell.
So now I clean. Right
now I’m in Chimmy (pronounced Kimmy!) Stout’s house. She’s got more money than she has sense, and
she says things to me like. “This
wallpaper is sea grass, real high class, so you got to be careful with it.”
“Uh huh,” I say.
Chimmy and the rest of the young ones, the under forty
crowd, think I’m dumb. I don’t color my
hair, and I don’t know what’s good on TV, and I haven’t left Compton proper,
which is smackdab in the middle of Arkansas, since Daddy Bush was in office.
I wouldn’t be one of them if you doubled my pay. When I go to Sienna’s house, up on Logtown
Hill, she’s in her little gym, doing the Brazilian Butt Lift exercises,
sweating like a pig, all red-faced and miserable and skinny except where her
fake breasts rise up too high on her chest.
“Eat some pie,” I say, “and you’ll get a butt.” And then I
laugh, but she looks at me grim-faced and mops her brow with a monogrammed
towel.
I’ve read about Zen, and I think that’s what happens when I
clean. I like order. I like rows of white dishes stacked in clean
cabinets, and blue towels turned like Tootsie Rolls in a linen closet. I like the sound a vacuum makes when it’s
picking up mistakes.
I wish it was the same with life, missteps whisked away and
caught up in a paper bag. I’ve made too
many blunders to right it all now, I think.
My boy, Clifton, he won’t talk to me, hasn’t in thirty-two years. I ran off a girl he loved once, I did, I ran
her off because I caught her with my other boy, Donald, her fingers in his
hair, his mouth on her neck. I never
told Clifton why, and he never forgave me.
Maybe I should have let it be. I’m getting so old I doubt myself.
So I clean and try not to think. I can see Sienna through the French
doors. She’s lying on her back and she’s
got her knees up to her chest – well, up to her breasts at least – and she’s rocking
side to side, and she’s crying, loud wet sobs.
Her husband, I don’t know much about.
He keeps his change in a mug he made in grade school, a purple glob of a
mug, and he golfs, and he hides candy bars in his sock drawer, the big kind
some governor will likely outlaw soon.
I turn the TV on so I won’t have to listen to Sienna, and I
see Randy Travis has been arrested in Texas, buck naked and drunk and
threatening officers. His mug shot is
awful, bruised face and angry eyes.
I had a man used to sing “Forever and Ever” to me. He had a good voice, no Randy Travis, but
good. If I could find him again, I’d
apologize for every mean thing I ever said.
I’d touch his cheek and I’d look into this dark eyes and I’d run my
thumb across his lips. I’d tell him what
a fool I was to up and leave. I’d tell
him what it’s like to clean a tub, to make it sparkle. I’d tell him how anything can be washed clean.
How forgiveness is like house work, it makes your bones ache, but in the end
you sit back and you feel something like you do in church when the preacher’s
on the right track. I’d tell him how a
new-made bed can turn your life clean around.
Marla, I love the stream-of-consciousness of this piece. My favorite paragraph is the second one where she’s talking about reading to the “subjects.”
Thank you. Any excuse to read Faulkner is a good one.
Marla I love the drawling voice to this piece, the imagery of the funeral parlour and the insights to the inside of homes on the hill.
Thank you so much.
I like the details here and the rhythm of the narrators thoughts. I see the story as saying we are going to die, we live different sorts of lives with different values, and the narrator wishes she had not lost the “love of my life” by not cherishing him. If that is the story line that you are trying to relate, then you might want to cut some of the stuff out of the middle. I got way lost in trying to figure out who the characters were and how they were related. Stream of consciousness is fun to write but can be very difficult to read, so I think it usually works better if it’s broken up or is very short and sticks to the point, like a poem. Your details and voice are great. Like Katie, I love the first part where she is reading to the dead and think you would really get a good story out of this.
Thank you, Marianne. Honestly, I didn’t think much about the theme. I just wrote. I like the main character, though, so she might show up again sometime. You made some very good points.
I added to the above comment
I appreciate you, Marianne.
Omygosh that is good! You develop this character so well by giving us such a clear look inside her thoughts, her history, her outlook. Great writing!
Thank you so much.
What an original concept. You should continue this.
Thank you so much!
Fabulous! All from doing housework!!!! I must try it! My favourite bit – “I like the sound a vacuum makes when it’s picking up mistakes.”
Thank you so much, Juliana. I thought that line might come off as sappy.
I like to call this “productive procrastination,” and it’s true – when you free your focus, you can often think of just the right thing. Cleaning my house? Ugh, that’s another story.
Great term, Melissa. I chose to clean not because I wanted to but because it needed to get done and it’s a relatively mindless act so I could focus on writing without staring at the screen.
Clean my huge, two-storey, 50-year-old house at 11:40 in the evening, just to get rid of writer’s block…
Puffy respectfully nominates drawing cute anime maids as a better alternative. Nah just kidding.
Puffy, when I’m writing-cleaning I only half-complete jobs, so if the offer’s still good, I’ll see you tonight. 😉
Her nephew and his new wife were coming on Friday night to spend the weekend. The cleaning woman who normally came to help on Thursday had sprained her wrist and wound’t be in.
“I’m so sorry. I know Bernard is coming and you want things to look presentable, but my arm is in a sling and I might not be there next week either,” she said.
“Don’t worry about it. Stay home. Get well,” said Loretta.
Loretta looked at the house. She had never been a good housekeeper. She had two shaggy little spaniels, three Persian cats, and a husband who never picked up after himself. She didn’t know where to start. She tried to look at the room from top to bottom, then side to side. There was no logical starting point, she thought What had her mother told her. She remembered something about doing the floors last. Her mother had been careful to teach her children to clean, and had paid them for certain difficult cleaning jobs. She remembered a silver tea service with filigree around the rim of the tray. She remembered the pink silver polish and how hard it was to get it out from the crevices of the filigree. She remembered her mother standing behind her praising her efforts. Her mother had always had the best parties, the cleanest house, the most interesting things to talk about. Loretta’s mother had told her about her own mother’s adventures as a suffragette. Loretta sat looking at the cat hair and old newspapers and began in her head a story of a suffragette who was going to have the other suffragettes over ostensibly to play cards, when actually they were going to plan a picket.
She took her notebook to the porch. She didn’t want looking at the dirty house to interfere with the story that was forming in her mind.
I love this, especially the part about not knowing where to start. And the story she’s going to write. So, so good.
Love this, Mariaanne. Great job showing the character’s thoughts as well as her actions.
Mariaanne I really like this, there is a natural way you have moved from the present to the past. Interesting how the tidy make an untidy make a tidy make an untidy child/adult. A bit like if you have a parent who is always late you become early and vice versa.
HahaHA, HOW I can relate! – ‘she tried to look at the room from top to bottom, then side to side’ – love that!! This has such a great flow, which as you read, you’re completely swept up with her thought process and have forgotten entirely about the nephew and the housecleaning needs and you’re actually cheering her on to write – well, I did! Great piece.
This is good, I’m sorry I missed it before! I identify with Loretta’s trying to find a logical starting point and not being able to. I was not raised to do house work as a boy in the 1960’s but have had to learn it on my own as an adult. I know to go generally from top to bottom, and I keep my living space as clean or cleaner than a lot of my guy friends. I guess what I really identify with in Loretta is the necessity to get the cleaning done – “If I don’t do it, it won’t get done”!
Katie this is fantastic. I’ll tell ya what though, if you can come clean, I’ll just write okay? 🙂 haha (I’ve tried it on my wife and it DOES NOT WORK.)
Your wife is a smart woman. I bet the method I’m suggesting will work better, and she’ll love it! 😉
I didn’t see my “plan” working there. I tried though 🙂
I had a daughter once, well I guess I still do somewhere.
She was taken by social services. People stopped looking me in the eye, in the
face, stopped looking at me at all.
I have a husband, I know where he is, he is in the hospital
in the ward we don’t talk about. People gossip about him, about his truth,
about his lies.
I have a house, I live there alone, two bedrooms sparkling
clean. I don’t sleep in them, I don’t sleep at all. I sit in a sparklingly
clean house waiting for visitors. People don’t stop by, they act like they don’t
know I’m here.
I know what I did and didn’t do, I know what I am. Rumours
fly in the town, faster and faster creating momentum. I have to hold onto the
knowing, my knowing.
Rebecca was my daughter’s name. She wasn’t brought to the
funeral, I wonder if she was told. I hope one day she will come to my house and
see the sparkling bedrooms. I will tell her my truth. I will tell her the
truth. I hope she hears me. I hope she listens.
Dodie Foster, my next door neighbour comes in once a week,
dusting and polishing. When she comes in this room she shivers but she does not
look me in the eye, she does not see me.
That was great Suzie. She’s guilty of something related to her family and is keeping the house sparkling like to keep the blood from showing (not literally I know). I hope your write some kind of suspense or mysteries. You really can show what is whispered about.
All you need to solve the mystery has been given. Can you work it out?
Psst. Dodie is key
Duh, now I get it. I am really not on the ball this week (or month maybe).
The tone of this is chilling, and you want to know everything. I love the part about the husband, so, so good.
Hey Marla thanks, I wish I could drawl like y’all can. I practice what a character in “Hart of Dixie” would say but I reckon I slip in too many English words or a wee bit of brogue.
I LOVE your voice. Maybe we should trade for a day.
Ooh! Made me shiver! I want to know what happened! I love your descriptions and the contrasts. The sadness was evident and the mystery delicious!
Thanks Beck, it was weird how it developed and I had to go back and change bits for it all to make more sense. Although it may need more work cos I don’t think any of ye have the mystery worked out. It is all there!!
Her husband killed her, she’s the ghost Dodie can’t see!
exackerly Mrs Fizzarkerly
(my fave saying at the minute means exactly)
I love your narrator who I would consider unreliable but I want to know more.
thanks Katie, Dodie is the key
Brilliant, Suzie! Dazzling writing.
Oh my goodness! The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up!
Wow! This is really good. Hope you continue this! And I wouldn’t wish for anyone else’s voice- yours is just grand!
This all reminds me of a sign that a dear friend of mine sent me recently. It reads “Dull women have immaculate houses”. I love it. It hangs proudly in my kitchen.
I love that!
I indulge in the apparent unproductivity of long, brisk walks through my favorite woods, almost pristine land close to home where I have seen deer fauns and red-winged blackbirds and heard all of their calls, the different birds — I can’t keep up with all their names. Those woods and creatures have already figured heavily in two stories, and a trip through them never fails to inspire me on a fundamental level.
Here is my practice:
She can see the recording studio, the microphone dangling in front of her face, the face of the engineer thought the large plate glass window. The orchestra begins the intro quiety then slowly builds, changes key, swells, lifts like a magic carpet coming to bear her aloft. She takes a slow, deep, measured breath, instinctively counting ahead the beats until her entrance on that certain downbeat, as plucked notes from the strings punctuate the gathering fullness, the spreading beauty of the arrangement.
It’s almost here! She stands lightly on the balls of her feet, ready to catch the lifting of the music and ride, let her voice ride that music, make it meaningful in human language, make it complete. And . . .
NOW! She releases the opening line:
“Sky – lark______, have you any-thing to say__ to me____, . . . ”
. . . and gives a start when the door to the hotel room opens, and Keisha sticks her head in. “Guhhhl, I didn’t know you could SING like that!”
I love this. What an ending. I also loved your description of the woods. I was on a story last week in Arkansas near the country’s 1st national river, where the elk laze near the road in the fall and the males bugle and the females wait to see who wins. Nothing like nature to fuel writing.
Thanks, Marla! I’ve been in Arkansas a couple of times, the most vivid moemory being of Hot Springs when I was little. The place you describe sounds beautiful. Can you tell me what you mean by “the nation’s 1st national river”? Yes, nature speaks clearly . . . .
The battle for the Buffalo River started years ago when some wanted to dam it so that they could make deep lakes to draw in tourists. It would have ruined the 135-mile river. Congress stepped in 40 years ago and claimed it as a National River. It wasn’t all sunshine though. Ancestral farms were taken over, roads closed, and families lost homes. Today, it’s a masterpiece of a river, clear water, bluffs rising above, elk nearby, bass swishing by. About 1 million people visit each year. So, I don’t think tourism suffered at all.
I see! Thank you!
I love the walks idea. When I was in school and we had required study hall, the teachers would get upset with me because I was staring out into space and calling it writing but that’s really what I was doing.
I love your practice! I had to read it twice. She’s so into it!
Thank you very much, Katie! I too was a starer-out-windows and a dreamer in school . . .
The level of fantasy that your narrator achieves is remarkable. I used to have similar reveries about my singing until I was asked not to sing in the choir at church. That was a very sad day for this soprano.
…….I hope you didn’t take one criticism as a definitive verdict on your singing voice. I was once told that I couldn’t sing by a minister whose issue was not really with my singing but had to do with a personality/culture clash between us. I have performed vocally many times, and have learned not to be self-conscious just because I’m different than what some folks are accustomed to!
You are very kind John. One of my friends who is a classical musician told me that if one listens to a lot of blues or folk music you learn a pitch that is a little different from classical and he thought that was what happened to me. That kind of goes along with what you’re saying, and I never did listen to classical except in church.
……..Yes, classical, as I learned in my 18 months as a music major in college many moons ago, is not only a style but a discipline; musicians are expected to play/sing precisely what is notated in the score. It has its beauty — I learned to appreciate it and I do listen to it fairly often. But I also learned there that many classically trained people think that anything “popular” or “folk” is inferior unless it was “interpreted” in the classical orchestral setting hundreds of years ago by one of the masters. I have identified with and loved jazz, blues, rock and country music, with their freedom of improvisation, since I was a child, and I’m not afraid to admit that. But I try not to value-judge other peoples’ taste in music. The different schools of musical philosophy produce very different sounds, and few there be who can perform in more than one genre, but that’s the diversity that makes us all so valuable IMO.
Sometimes, when I’m in an internal conflict between doing some writing and going off to YouTube and such, I go ahead and let myself drift toward the latter–and snatch myself toward the former. Acting on it, but not all the way, loosens the tension.
I’ve tried that. I always end up latching to the latter and the short attention span takes over.
My Practice:
Cat hair everywhere. I don’t care if it is from a thousand-dollar, long-haired, Himalayan something-or other. It’s still a pain.
I pull my rubber gloves out of my work kit, wet them down and then let the static electricity do its work. With the dining room chairs exquisitely brocade in a meadow of flowers, only an expert like me would actually realize where those golden fibers came from. That is, until company sat their silk fannies down and then arose with flaxen fur butts.
I pull out my special furniture polish for the china cabinet. Hairy, too. I guess I’d better clean inside. Those little fluffs can penetrate the tiniest of cracks. I’m thorough to a fault.
I carefully remove the crystal from the glass shelf and wipe it clean. But what do you know, hairy stemware, too. That would certainly tickle the palates of the champagne set.
On my dust cloth I’ve collected a huge pile of soft fur, rich in color like lame. It is beautiful, I have to admit. Maybe I could save these long golden strands, maybe spin them and weave them into something magical.
Isn’t it in the Himalayas where they make Shatoosh shawls from the under belly of a goat. So fine and delicate you can pull the whole shawl through your wedding ring.
Wedding ring. What do I know about wedding rings. But if I could figure out what to do with this cat hair, if I could be clever and wonderful . . . .
[that was a quick 15 minutes!]
Time flies when you’re having fun. 😉
Good job, Nancy. I was grossed out with all that fur, though.
I love the line about the Himalayas.
I do some great brainstorming while mowing the lawn. I’d create quite a mess going in and out of the house. Of course, the extra housework could then lead to great things.
Mowing the lawn is my favorite chore. I get so much writing done! My story for this month’s Show Off contest was actually written on the tractor.
i have procrastinated a LOT… but it hasn’t really gotten me into working…
I hate it when that happens
Jamie slipped out of her yellow heels and immediately felt guilty. Nathan had made her throw away all her flat shoes the day they came home from honeymoon. Of course she couldn’t clean in heels, but she still felt rebellious.
Her orange flaming top pressed against her neck. She swore under her breath because her skinny jeans made manouvering around the lounge floor tiresome. But Nathan may walk in at any time. Nightmares played out in her head about what he would do if he saw her in a tracksuit, or – Lord help her – no make-up at all.
‘You’re my trophy wife,’ he whispered into her ear just after they kissed at the alter.
‘You’ve smudged your lipstick,’ he said right as they sliced through the delicate white wedding cake.
Nerves, she thought, and pride – common traits in the Wainwrights. She trotted into the car as a newly-wed, unaware of the expectations of the groom beside her, tightly gripping her waist. She went hungry for the first seventeen days of marriage. Nathan inspected every plate of food laid before her, and he picked out all the items that were ‘a waste of calories’. Jamie gazed at her white plate, devoid of everything but salad and the occasional piece of protein.
‘I know how little you girls eat,’ Nathan winked, as he sucked the cream off his fingers.
Jamie had to hurry. Her husband didn’t want to be greeted by a cleaner when he returned. There was a spot on the floor that just wouldn’t go away. Jamie got on her hands and knees and confronted that mark with everything she had. Back and forth, back and forth. And she imagined…
She was planting in the garden, mud in her hair and between her toes. Her hair hadn’t been washed for days. She wore a pair of tattered dungarees that made her look like one of those country mommas that ran after chickens and still used a stick to hit the sense into her children. Jamie was sweaty. The smell of smoked chicken pie reeked from the kitchen, where the double chocolate brownies would be cut in jagged chunks, not identical slices. The garden was a beautiful mess of thyme and rosemary and rocket, growing around each other, because they knew no order. And her belly was about to burst with new love.
The kitchen timer buzzed. Nathan had just finished work.
Jamie teetered back on her feet and scowled at the spot, which she was sure had doubled. In her bedroom she doused herself in perfume, just how Nathan liked it. She covered her lips with another coat of Sunset Passion, slid on her heels and walked to the couch. Jamie folded her legs and picked up a magazine. Nathan had bought her Cosmo yesterday. It was opened to an article on make-overs.
Zoe, I feel so bad for Jamie! I got right into the story. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for a fun prompt!!
I love your story but I hate Nathan. Love the part about the garden. The jagged edges if the brownies – brilliant!
Thanks Marla!
You show how artificial one can become. The part she imagines seems so much more real than the part that is actually reality in her world. I think the details of him telling her that her lipstick is smudged when they are cutting the wedding cake and his gripping her wrist tightly are good details because they had me wondering why she was with such a jerk from the beginning.
thanks Mariaane – I think I’ve drawn quite one-dimensional characters… Hmmm… a bit too black and white!!
Totally agree with this! I discovered the same thing while scrubbing the bathtub!
Ugh… that’s on my to do list tonight. Here’s to some excellent writing while scrubbing!
Her mother’s house.
She opened the door with the familiar key. Her mother’s house. Still and quiet.
And empty. Mary sighed as she hung her coat on the hook in the hall and walked
toward the kitchen. There were so many memories in this house. Not all bad, not
all good. She leaned on the doorway and looked into kitchen, her mother’s
domain. She would chase them out flapping a tea towel “I don’t need you under
my feet”. The old clock ticked loudly – she had never noticed it before and
there were dust motes dancing in a shaft of sun. On the bench were a cup and
saucer, teaspoon and crumb covered plate. Remains of her mother’s last supper.
She went to the sink
and pushed in the old rubber plug, filling it with hot water. She looked for
rubber gloves but, of course, there weren’t any. Nor was there any detergent,
instead an old metal shaker with a piece of yellow soap inside. She turned it
around wondering when was the last time anyone had ever used this sort of
contraption. She shook it in the hot water and watched the suds froth and
multiply, there was a curious satisfaction in the act. The dishes were soon
done and with a sink full of sudsy water she looked around for something else
to wash. Her mother’s china sat on the dresser, behind glass. She pulled it out
– pale pink roses, greenery in a pleasing band around the plates, covering the
cups. The china was so fine it was almost transparent. Gently, tenderly she
placed them in the water and washed away the dust. On the underside of the big
cake plate was a piece of tape with her sister’s name on. Huh! Mum had left it
to Sue. She wondered what else was labelled and began to check. The silver
service to her brother, the crystal sherry glasses to her niece, the blue and
white bowl she had always loved to her sister again. Was there anything with
her name, “Mary” on it? Anything?
Half an hour later she
sat on her mother’s bed and hot tears streamed down her face. She the eldest,
the one who lived closest, the one who had seen least of her mother,
occasionally being asked to ferry her to a doctor’s appointment when there was
no-one else to help. Nothing, her mother had left her nothing. Her childhood
ache – unwanted, unloved – it had
not been in her head. There was a feeling of almost satisfaction knowing she
had not imagined the coolness, the indifference. Oh, on the surface her mother
had always been fair, scrupulously fair but there had been no warmth, no love.
Why? Why had her mother found her unloveable?
She dried her face,
her eyes felt gritty and dry. Her siblings would arrive tomorrow she wondered
if they would notice. Jilly would – she could hear Jilly fussing and exclaiming
there must be a mistake. Mum would have meant for her, Mary, to have the bowl –
she had not been herself. But Mary knew and Jilly knew, just sometimes a mother
didn’t take to her child.
Awe! I hope everything unlabeled goes to Mary. I must also confess that my family has taken to labeling things in my grandparents’ house–and they are very much alive. Beyond just providing the tape and pencil, they’ve encouraged us by “secretly” telling each of us what’s yet to be claimed.
Catching ideas can be a tricky thing. They creep on you when you least expect and challenge you into finding new ways of grabbing them. For me it usually happens in the shower and many times I had to come out covered with soap and bubbles just to quickly write something down. Great post Katie!
There was a conversation about that a few weeks back here in the comments. The suggestion was for water-proof paper and pencil or recording device.
Great article in today’s Wall Street Journal about procrastination; agrees with you.
Thanks for bring that to my attention. Don’t forget: you heard it here first. 😉
Here’s the article link in case anyone else wants to see it: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443537404577579033271214626.html
Well, I guess it worked ’cause I had really no idea at all for this one, and came up with this while I was doing the dishes.
Shoshana worked quickly.
She loved cleaning her Wednesday apartment. The ‘geveret’ had given her the key, so she
could come in while the children were at school and her ‘geveret’ at work; she
could clean without anyone disturbing her.
How she marvelled at it all: The
three bedrooms one for the ‘adon’ and
the ‘geveret’ and one for each of the two children. In her small apartment, there was only one
bedroom for the nine of them. Every
night, they spread mattresses on the floor so that all the children could find
a place to sleep. And the beautiful
dishes and furniture and the sheer amount of things.
When they had managed to escape from Yemen, all they had was what they
could carry in small bundles.
But thank God, they had made it out safely, and were now here, in a new
country where they could live freely.
Only Azaryah, such a talented goldsmith back in Yemen had no real work
here. He would drift from one job to
another, sometimes helping to plant
trees, in this arid country, sometimes helping bring in the harvest. Most of the time, though, he’d be sitting in
the coffeehouse with his cronies playing ‘sheshbesh’. It
wore away at a man’s pride, having his wife bring home the money that paid the
rent and the electricity and bought the food they ate.
In this new country with the desert never far away, and new
buildings constantly being built for all the new immigrants flooding the land,
there was always dust to clear away. But
once everything was dusted, and the floors sparkling after her ‘sponja,’ she
could go into the bedrooms and work there.
Most of all, she liked cleaning the children’s bedrooms. She loved folding the small, beautiful clothing
they wore. She loved seeing their
toys. One day, her children would have
such things too. But most of all, she
loved seeing their books.
When she finished her work, she would allow herself a minute
to go through some of them, looking at the pictures and the scrawls around them. Married at twelve, she had never learned to
read. Now her children came home from
school, and she was unable to help them with their studies. The older ones were already embarrassed by
her ignorance. But she rode them
hard. She wanted them to learn. She wanted them to have more out of life than
she did. She wanted them to have
beautiful apartments one day like her ‘adon’ and her ‘geveret’.
To have shelves full of books.
And one day, when she didn’t have to work so hard, she would sit in
their apartment, pick up a book, and get one of them to teach her to read as
well. One day.
This is great! Well done. I hope your dishes get washed too. 😉