I Feel Real Pretty

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I'm trying to make peace with my solitude, but I feel like I'm wasting it. More pacing, more cleaning. I did get out and walk the dog on the beach, which we both enjoyed. I don't know. I love vacuuming, folding towels, making the bed. Washing the floors. There is a frenetic, get-it-done way of cleaning, and there is this whole other thing, this slow, meditative, both attentive and unfocused thing, like a walking meditation. And it's concrete. Verifiable.

It's like removing obstructions, so that the inner light of things can shine through.


Everything glows.



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I was listening to my house cleaning playlist and Tom Waits started singing "Take it with me when I go" and it stopped me in my tracks. I had to sit down and try not to cry. My heart got all swelled up, my throat, too.

It made me miss my wife in a sharp, fierce way.


I can't listen to it without I think of her, but usually I can hear it and just look up and see her face, and go to her.


So, that happened.



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More stove madness. I know, I know. I lay awake for two hours last night imagining what I was going to do today. Which was chrome polish and car wax. Which was painting in the worn away markings on the oven dial with a toothpick and four drops of paint. Which was taking the back and sides off the great white beast and vacuuming all the inner nooks and crannies and wiping everything down and fitting it back snug and tightening all the loose screws (after I soaked them in degreaser and sprayed them with WD-40.)




I have done lost my tiny mind.



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But I feel real pretty in my new dress.




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Okay, so here's what she looks like now:

1952 O'Keefe & Merritt Model 600 with bulldog hand towel 

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Namaste.



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