Things Fall Apart - Jan 3 2025

 

Things Fall Apart

Jan 3 2025

Dust bunnies under the couch.

The fridge

smudged with fingerprints.

The sink

sunk with dirty dishes.

Are things left undone

too easy a metaphor?

Especially the kitchen.

Where dishes pile up

and spill across the countertop,

sodden Cheerios

float half-submerged

in bowls of stagnant water,

and a scum line

rings the stainless steel

of the scuffed double sink.

While its taps are caked

in a crust of who-knows-what;

a grungy mix

of scale

dried-on soap

and unscrubbed human hands.

My mother, though

kept up with the housework.

Guests were impressed

while we were conscripted to help.

I think for her

a clean house was therapy.

That the act of cleaning

helped her feel in control;

an imposition of order

when she felt powerless,

surrounded

by signs of disarray.

Because there’s no changing the world,

but the small domain of home

is yours to rule.

So, am I just lazy?

Wilfully blind?

Or do I have my priorities straight;

that godliness can wait

and appearances don’t matter?

Perhaps, it’s that I’ve given in

to my inner nihilist.

That I’ve become resigned

to a world in disarray,

a universe

tending to its lowest state,

inescapably

falling into entropy

and maximum disorder.

So why even pretend?

Because in the end, it will all be a mess;

atomized

and meaningless.

But it turns out

the housekeeper was a good idea.

She putters, tidies, cleans,

while I am free

to indulge in philosophy.

And it turns out, I enjoy a neat house.

Not to mention

that my mother would approve;

if not my industry

then at least the result.

It even turns out

I enjoy the feeling of control;

the false front of order

contained within these walls,

the illusion

that things will go on

pretty much as before.

By now, the dishes have been done

and stainless steel scrubbed,

pillows fluffed

beds tucked

dust vacuumed up.

But no matter what

as fast as it’s removed

more just accumulates,

materializing

out of nowhere

as things fall apart

the centre does not hold.

Accumulates

as skin exfoliates

soil erodes

and giant stars explode,

showering down on earth

and into all our homes.

I’m actually much more my mother than the narrator of this poem. I keep a neat house. Disorder makes me antsy. Everything has a place. I enjoy the feeling of control, and clean when I need soothing.

No housekeeper for me: I know I won’t be satisfied; I like my privacy; and standing idle while someone else works makes me very uncomfortable.

But I’m also a nihilist. So in moments of despair, it’s hard to see the point of neatness.

And perhaps it’s a misplacing of priorities. One certainly gets the feeling of being a hamster on a treadmill (or is it a gerbil?!): cleaning and neatening, just to have to do it again …and again …and again. If something keeps getting undone and never gets finished, surely there are other things far more worthwhile. There is something to be said for wilful blindness!