Something of an earworm that tune, due no doubt to having been practicing it.*

Still guests or no guests, it is sort of inevitable that this is the time of year when I really clean things.  Partially, it is because we do ‘trim the hearth’, partially because most outdoor things are fairly wound up.*

I actually enjoy certain types of cleaning, especially of furniture.  I find that it gives me a chance to think about other things, such as writing, or simply to have a chance to closely examine how the piece is made.  It can also be a form of meditation, if one is in the right mood.  Cleaning, as the tune suggests on one level of interpretation, is a chance to prepare so that guests, whoever they may be, are welcome.  Yet not just the guests, it also is a welcome to those who live there.  It is a chance to reflect on what one has and to at least try and give thanks for having it.  Though I confess, such saintly thoughts are not always foremost in my mind…especially when vacuuming.  Putting up seasonal decorations also demands reorganization; this allows one to clear away the extraneous, so that what is important has pride of place.  Over time, a mantle or a shelf fills with things that we simply don’t have a chance to put away.  Clearing it off for the seasonal decorations gives one a chance to evaluate what is on it, what needs to be on it, why things are on it, and should they change.  At any rate, before I wander too far into half-baked metaphors…

  Oddly, some of the pieces I most enjoy (assuming the right frame of mind here) are the pieces that most people find to be excessive. The house has a number of pieces of moderate but emphatically Victorian furniture.  It may be a Shingle/Queen Anne style house; but the furniture came from Hartford and the earlier Victorian era.  Modern it is not.  Most people can’t stand it.*   The pieces are large but not designed for large people, they never have squishy seats, and all those intricately carved roses, flowers, curlicues…well they Do catch dust.  And are utterly pointless in regards to function.  Personally, I can’t stand squishy sofas that make me feel trapped.  Hard, narrow horsehair seats and an upright back is just fine for me.  As for the dust.  Well, once you get it really clean and well waxed…which does take near on a day for one sofa, keeping it dust free simply requires the careful application of the vacuum followed by a soft cloth.  Yes the curlicues are pointless, but why not create simply to create?  They still look good, 150 years on, not bad craftsmanship there.

*It is the advent hymn: ‘People look East’, an almost annoyingly catchy tune set with almost annoyingly well rhymed words that I haven’t been able to get out of my head since choir on Tuesday.

*Not this year, I still have some exceedingly large chunks of tree out there.

*From what I understand, antique dealers won’t touch the stuff because no one will buy it.