Season’s Cleanings

ISSUE #73

This week's playlist was made to put on when you're cleaning the house. The whole thing revolves around a driving pulse, a specific BPM that rhymes with your work. It's a metronome made to match with your broom and a back-up chorus to keep you pushing along.

Last Saturday, I started doing the dishes right after I woke up, just to clear up the sink, but I had time left in my podcast when that was done, so I started to wipe the counters too, which snowballed into waking up the vacuum and doing all the floors, and when I finally came to I was out in the garage sweeping up all the corner cobwebs. This playlist showed up in the middle of the whirlwind.

I'm well-acquainted with these spasms of tidiness; I'm almost always using it as an excuse to put off all the long-term work I can't be bothered to actually do (writing the book, planning the future, etc). Not my fault that I can't write anything if there's a spot on the ceiling.

Procrastination or not, it feels good to pick up. Cleaning the house is cleaning the soul. There's a special kind of endorphin that's released when you're scrubbing the bathtub, different from those you get from running because you can actually see the difference you've made. It's the catharsis of taking care of yourself. Most of life's work just puts money in someone else's pockets, but tidying up is the one of the only types of labor that directly benefits you, tending to your own spirit and giving you a tangible result. Afterward, you can light a candle in a clean house and do jack shit for the rest of the day.

That said, let me dust this thing off:

With love,
Jeff