Dust, dust, and more dust
In which we are resigned to the filth of it all
Nothing surprises me these days.
The kitten gets onto the counter and starts chewing on the bread (it’s hardly the first time she’s made her way up there), and the puppy scampers clumsily up after her. For him, this is a new and delightful achievement. I chase them off with outraged yells, knocking over a bottle of palinka in the process, grateful I was able to quickly mute my microphone first.
You see, I’m hosting a training meeting, sitting in an armchair in a cramped and chaotic kitchen while in the pantry, workers chisel and hammer. They’re making a bloody racket and creating an incredible mess. By the end of the day, we should have hot water at the kitchen sink. It’s been more than a month since we’ve had that luxury.
As for work, I’ve given up any pretense of professional appearance. Baggy sweaters, infinity scarves. socks in my slippers. Don’t the Scandinavians have a glamorous word for that? Hygge? I’m going for bohemian chic with my hair tied in an artfully messy bun and hoping the band of my headphones hide the worst of my unwashed and tangled mess. My teeth feel fuzzy and while I’m quite sure my colleagues can’t tell, I feel I’ve reached a new low and I’m grateful I don’t have to turn on the video camera.
In the middle of the meeting, the modem disconnects and I spend a painful 10 minutes reconnecting while my new and very eager colleague sends plaintive messages through Teams to my phone:
“It seems like maybe we lost our connection.”
“Are you there? Hello? Are you there?”
“Maybe we should reschedule for another time? Let me know when you’re back.”
Anything I put down is soon covered in white paw prints. Moving an item reveals its shadow self, a dark shape carefully outlined in a white veil of dust. Everywhere is dust and filth and our growing sense of despair.
The new toilet is installed, and we experience a brief moment of glory, celebrated by test flushing the — hallelujah! — newly functional throne. Our glee is short-lived, however, as we realize that the seat is crooked and extends much too far beyond the front edge of the ceramic bowl. We spend a frustrating hour on hands and knees in the dark, trying not to drop our phones-turned-flashlights into the bowl, struggling to align the seat.
For an encore, the toilet refuses, at a significantly inopportune moment, to flush. The workers have already gone home, the port-a-potty has been carted away. We flounder, and anxiety runs high: How can this be? What is wrong? Can it be fixed?
But we’re veterans of chaos. We shift to bucket flushing seamlessly, with barely a hesitation or pause. We’re used to this. We know what to do without even thinking about it.
One of my previous job descriptions referred to this as “pivoting to meet shifting priorities” — something like that — jargon that signified the ability to deal with constant chaos on daily basis and not lose your shit.
We do occasionally lose our shit, but mostly we’re OK.
Perhaps we’ve given up, or maybe we’ve simply stopped trying. Maybe our standards have dropped. A shower every three days is my new “optimal”. Who needs daily showers? Why shouldn’t I wear these socks again? Do I really need to wash or will a bit more “armpit perfume” suffice?
I eye the clothes hamper full of dirty clothes, contemplating how many more times I can wear this sweatshirt and pair of pants. The weather app’s prediction of rain over the next four days elicits a quiet and resigned internal shrug. I won’t be doing laundry just yet.
The washing machine sits outside on the patio covered in a green plastic tarp. The dirty water runs off through a few lengths of PVC pipe propped up by found objects — a watering can, a vase — and out to the other side of the chain link fence that delineates the front yard from the back, a purely conceptual distinction. The outside faucet serving as the hookup for the hose that delivers water to the washing machine leaks with what one might call a vengeance. One load of laundry transforms the front lawn into a marsh. The makeshift clothesline — a jute rope stretched from post to tree — extends across the yawning muck, sagging deeply through the middle, precisely over our makeshift firepit.
A good day is when I manage to get one load of laundry washed and fully dried on the line before it starts to rain without dragging or dropping anything in the mud.
I know a woman, became a wife
These are the very words she uses to describe her life
She said a good day ain't got no rain
She said a bad day’s when I lie in bed
An’ I think of things that might’ve been— Paul Simon, Slip Sliding Away
Our standards have slipped. Our discipline too. How did we get here?
What’s the point in sweeping up after the workers have left? What’s the point in washing the sheets, in using plates, in taking off our outdoor shoes and donning indoor slippers?
We are living and breathing the futility of this uphill battle. Best to simply hunker down and wait. We do what we can, and the dust is ingrained in every surface.
We sink into bed, sometimes far too late or after too much wine, sometimes early, exhausted and beat and already dreading the morning. As we pull the heavy blankets over our bodies, shape the pillows to our heads, soft puffs of white dust billow up and into the room like a sigh. We give in, gratefully, to sleep.
During the night, as the stars move through the sky and the puppy hops quietly up onto the forbidden couch, the cat curls at my feet and the dust settles back down, like confectioner’s sugar, enveloping us in its impossibly fine embrace.
In the morning, we wake and rise, leaving our shadows outlined on the bed behind us. We shake the sediment off our skin and our souls, and turn to face the new day and whatever it may bring.
Dust, sunshine, muck: it’s all the same.
We embrace it and keep moving on.
Quite the struggle. "“pivoting to meet shifting priorities” just remove the F. Stay sane, look loving into each others eye and know you see a friend.
Well said. You now "pay today, play tomorrow".