I ran into my friend at the laundromat the other day. She switched back to Tide detergent. Temporarily. With a lot of guilt and yucky feeling about it. She usually smells like a mix of sweet lavender laundry soap and patchouli and a gentle wood stove. I confessed to her that I had just bleached my shower curtain and towels last week. We found comfort in the other’s shared struggle of keeping clean and loving the earth.
Last spring I hauled a live 6ft apple tree in the front seat of my car. It spilled soil and leaves. I chauffeured some very well-used shovels and buckets of water in the back seat that day. They also spilled. And despite the best efforts of both me and some very thick seat covers, my car both smells and looks like it’s used for farm chores. I bet it’s because it is used for farm chores. I should also add that my dog sleeps in my bed with me. And despite the best efforts of Honey’s weekly baths, the water still looks like chocolate milk after a week of romping in swamp, field, and snow. My friend takes outdoor showers and works in a greenhouse. I catch her with matching dirt under her nails after a long day in the earth. My boots have a thick immovable, impenetrable layer of stains and stories that come into the house with me. Most of the time, I take them off at the door. But on occasion my hands are full and I just forgot one thing in my *fully carpeted* kitchen. And I vacuumed my house three times this week already.
Sometimes the outdoors become the indoors. When I find a cute rock or bundle of ditch flowers. Or Honey finds a cute stick or ditch pinecone. And we bring it inside. Now the out-of-doors is not a sanitary place. (Arguably and statistically, the in-of-doors is teeming with its own insanitation–you know poor air quality and dust mites and have you ever removed a decade old carpet?) Where am I going with this. Yes. I have four sets of work boots that are covered in their own sets of work grime. And I spend most of my summer in the dirty soil and fresh air and I bathed in a creek and got three eye infections. You know how the saying goes, “Does a bear poop in the woods?” And the answer is yes, I do.
But I was also in Dallas this last weekend, where the air was grey and heavy. And I saw a dog on a leash with miles and miles of concrete and sidewalk. And only square feet of green grass on which to potty and play. And Honey ran free today. Zooming from tree to tree, stick to stick, blasting through both inches and feet of fresh snow. She was fast. And the air was so clean and so fresh and so damn cold. She had miles and miles of green grass (metaphorically, obviously. If I remember correctly, there should be some grass under the inches and feet of fresh snow.) on which to potty and play.
And my drive to the “office” is twenty minutes of winding back roads with a view of the Blue Hills. I see fat bears and elegant herons. Fields full of deer, lunching on tall grass. I like when I don’t have to pack a lunch because the garden feeds me. I like hopping into the lake on the way home, hot and sore and sweaty. There’s this incredible expanse here. God, I can see the Milky Way and all the stars.
Still a puppy, Honey squeaks in the middle of the night signaling her need to go outside. I bundle up with boots and hat and jacket. We go out to where the icy air bites my cheeks and burns my lungs. And I look up to a black sky freckled with bright stars. Northern lights dance outside my window on occasion.
And as easy as it is to fall into complaining, there’s a magic here. A beauty. A slow, dirty, romantic, filthy beauty here. In the cold air and soft snuggles. In the bug bites and sun burns. The work boots and work clothes and the loads of laundry that don’t come all the way clean. In the carrots with a little bit of dirt on them still, and the hand-harvested meat with a little bit of grass on it. And two-person joy rides on a mini bike that will leave you begging for an appointment with the chiropractor. It’s messy. It’s a little gross. But it’s also holy and fun.
And so it was in the laundromat. A fond reflection with my lavender-scented buddy. Like spoken poetry. Of the beauty in this struggle. The constant vacuuming. The perpetual under-the-nail grit. And the green grass and deep snow. And fresh air and wide space. The clean water and the outdoor toilets. The cucumber off the ground and the apple off the tree. Sweaty brow and stained clothes. Natural fibers and castile soap.
🙂 so sweet and true