Dirt Is Sneaky

I confess that I am not the best housekeeper.

My house would not win any awards for cleanliness. I have cobwebs (that you mostly notice when the light is right) and dust bunnies and dust on the knickknacks that are on shelves above the fireplace. Every once in a while, I think about dusting, and then the dirt swirls around me and I cough and take the dust rags outside to shake them and set the dust free.

I’m Ok with a little dirt, especially if it’s high up in areas where I don’t notice it much. Is that a trait you can inherit? My Mom had a plaque that said, “God made dirt. It won’t hurt.”

But.

I didn’t think it was that bad.

We did a little work in my son’s bedroom earlier this week. Seemed like a good time, an opportune moment, since his high school graduation was a week ago, ushering in summer and a new era for him. We moved things around, filled a box with clothes and books for the Goodwill (including his Harry Potter Halloween costume from third grade and t-shirts that were too small), filled another bag with trash (An AP Chem notebook, his Boy Scout merit badge checklists). There were a million Legos on the floor. (I stepped on a few of them.) My son is in the process of sorting them into boxes and bins. I’m thinking that will be project that will take most of the summer.

Sure, it had been awhile since I had ventured into his room with a dust rag. But you would not believe the dirt that was in there. Or the stuff. The sheer volume of stuff! Which was amazing, considering that we moved into this house nearly ten years ago with not much more than would fit in our Honda Odyssey minivan.

Stuff multiplies.

Also dirt.

So, even though I don’t think about dirt much, especially the dirt that is up above where I see it regularly, I do try to take care of the dirt that shows up on the floor. I sweep a lot because the animals regularly bring in leaves. I shake out the carpet by the front door daily, too. But it wasn’t until we started moving things around in his room that I realized how much dirt was there, under things. Dirt is sneaky. Dirt hides. Maybe you’ve also experienced this, the last time you had to move? Moving is terrible! Because suddenly you see everything that was hidden: the dirt under the refrigerator, behind the washer and dryer, at the back of the pantry. We like to think we live in houses that are mostly clean, but when you start opening things and moving them, you learn the truth (the dirty truth.)  None of us are as clean as we think we are.

At least I’m not.

Clean is kind of an illusion.

But I’m thankful for vacuums and brooms, dust mops and dust rags. For now, at least, his room is cleaner. I can’t say clean, because I still need to dust the knickknacks, the ones that are high up on the shelf that I generally forget about. But summer is young still. There’s time. And every little bit helps. And the dirt that remains? Probably doesn’t matter that much anyway.