My House is a Mess

All right, all you perfectionists out there:  get ready to cringe at what you are about to read.

You know my house, where I live?  Yeah, well, it's a mess.

And I don't mean any bit of "oh, we played in the front room and there are blocks on the floor."  Please.  That is a mess for amateurs.

My mess is serious.

There are socks on the kitchen counter, next to an opened jar of almond butter with - get this - oil and almond butter dripping down the side, like some slow-mo avalanche.  Cabbage is slowly transforming itself into kimchee in my wastebin.

I've got a bag of cloth diapers - albeit clean - sitting in the dining room.  They'll stay there until I decide to fold them up and put them away.  And if last week was any indication, they'll be there until Tuesday.  Our dirty diapers go out Wednesday.

In the bedroom - clean clothes on the dresser in baskets.  Dirty clothes on the floor.  Sort of a general rule, only there is also a basket of clean laundry on the floor, patiently waiting for me to hang it up.  We're trying to save $$ & energy (but mostly money, I must admit) by hanging our clothes to dry inside on drying racks.  Olivia's shoes, which were missing since Monday, recently reappeared this morning, peeking out from underneath some transient clothes.

I don't even want to talk about paperwork.  At least I can see the desktop.  How is it that the littlest members of this human community generate more paperwork than they weigh?

From where I am sitting, I can see a partially-teethed teething biscuit, a clothespin, a baby monitor (which stopped working this morning - argh!), an empty bottle of oil of oregano tablets, a retractable pen, and a piece of popcorn which escaped after my husband made it - early last week.  All on the floor.  In grasping reach of my toddling 8 month-old.

So let's talk about getting everything right.  And let's be frank:  it doesn't happen.  Ever.  Sorry if you thought you were almost there.  There's always some sort of slip-up somewhere.

In many First Nations traditions, messing up is expected, even required.  A beadworker will purposely include a bead out of place - to show that she is merely a creation of the Creator, and not perfect.  That "mistake" is a token of her respect, an acknowledgment that she is a part of a whole - a larger community.

So this is what I'm working on right now, particularly with food, but also with raising a green family - adopting a posture of learning.  I'm tired of trying to fit into the city-slicker lifestyle of well-pressed, spotless, spray-on tight clothes.  I live in one of the most expensive areas of the country, and there always seems to be some sort of one-upmanship happening.  Even among friends.

It seems that, in the midst of a revolution, somebody looked up and asked, "do I look fat in this?"

I don't have time for this!  I've got children to raise!!  I've got ME to raise!!  I've got to learn about sustainable eating and spiritual awareness and social justice, for crying out loud!

Lord knows I don't even own a shirt without some sort of stain on it.  But it's not because I'm a slob - it's because it really doesn't matter.  I may be the frumpiest-looking mama on the block, and I can't recall when I last brushed my hair, but my kids are happy.  We're trying not to rush.  We're eating as best we know how, and we're growing.

I'm finished worrying about image and set on being authentic.  I'm in process.  Always.  I don't want to give a false pretense about how cool I want you to think I am.  Yesterday, I ate McDonald's.  But I'm trying, and that is what this life is all about!

Sorry about the rant, but I wanted to set the record straight.  Come on over, and expect a mess.  We'll talk about important issues, and we'll eat well.  You can even help me hang dry our laundry.