Rush To Relax

Deb: The other day I was pushing the limits on the kitchen cleanup when a simple thought occurred. I was picking up paper with one hand, emptying the dishwasher with the other, while making eyes at the lower door window with its puppy nose imprints, glass cleaner in my paw. All of this is normal for me. I have no issue with wanting things to be tidy and clean. But it suddenly dawned on me that I was moving at the speed of light. Truly. My dogs were staring in the direction of my scent and couldn’t even see me. I was just that fast.

And I thought, Why am I rushing? And how many times a day do I do this rushing? I realized with some alarm that I am so in love with the relax that I am rushing, panicked to accomplish all my chores in an attempt to achieve the ultimate chore reward—the relax. So I thought about it and was reminded of that old classic tune ... “Whistle while you work, Hitler is a jerk, Mussolini bit his weenie, now it doesn’t work.” ... sorry, got off track there with memories of grade three recess. 

What I thought about was The Seven Dwarfs (should I have capped that?). Is that their official moniker—The Seven Dwarfs?

I thought of their peppy happy little song, sans Hitler. What I really thought of was this idea of being happy at your work. I don’t mean your artistic work, your “trained for” work, your passionate work. I mean your toilet cleaning, counter wiping work. I mean the work that never ends. Hmmm, another song comes to mind. “It just goes on and on, my friends”...

I’m talking the crap work, you know what I mean. I strived to break the Olympic record for the empty dishwasher-clean stove-sweep floor-athon. Although I missed a shot at the podium, I was chuffed at achieving my personal best. Then it hit me. I was rushing to relax. These cleanup minutes have become empty time. They hold no value to me because I am simply getting through them. Am I really truly going to throw these moments away?

No. I need to pimp my clean. I need for it not to be the lousy wasted moments of my life. So tonight as I cleaned up, I put on Annie Lennox and I danced around the kitchen as I sashayed with the clean pots and pans, worthy partners all. I am vowing to take the piss out of tidy, the crap out of clean. I am going to rock that garbage disposal till it screams for limp scallion stems. 

Although the Seven Dwarfs got second billing, they had it goin’ on.

Barbara: Ha! I do very much relate to this, Deb, as I have found myself, on many an occasion, rushing through my chores. Or worse, nursing a sense of stress that I’m not doing them quickly enough, or that I haven’t yet gotten to them, or that as soon as I’ve done it, I will have to do it all over again. Why do I (we) get so stressed about something as simple and fundamentally non-taxing as The Chore? Deb, I love your Personal Best, Seven Dwarfs initiative! In fact, it reminds me of something a yoga instructor once told me: when you do a chore (ie, like washing a dish), it’s the best time to unwind and put yourself in the moment. Take that dish and really observe it as you clean it, really, as corny as it sounds, be in that moment. With your dancing and singing, Deb, you’ve shown us how to do it. Now if only I could get you to tape yourself doing it and post it here so we can really see how you do it :)