Since I moved in to my husband’s house in Seattle, we have been slowly painting and decorating every room.
Actually, it’s pretty generous to say “we.” I mean, I have been picking out colors and he has been painting (when one of you is not so good with details they’re probably not the one who should be attacking 100-year-old walls with a paintbrush.)
Anyway, yeah, I’m lucky.
But I try to help when I can.
Which is why when we moved the oven away from the wall in the kitchen and uncovered the horrors dwelling underneath, I volunteered for cleanup duty.
The oven couldn’t be moved too far from the wall since the gas line was still attached, so I had to climb into this teeny-tiny space behind it. There were cabinets overhead so I couldn’t even stand up once I was back there.
There was maybe 5 inches of space on all sides of me. I had to squat, and contort sideways and backwards in order to clean everything. The walls behind the range, the floor tile, the side of the cabinet where the range had been…
And as I was simple-greening and scraping away the oozing brown crud it occurred to me, yet again. Oh.
Here I am cleaning away layers of old stuff.
Just like on my computer.
Just like in my body.
Legacy-type stuff. Stuff so old I don’t really know how it got here.
Last year was all about drastic moves, deep course corrections. Go go going.
And all I seem to be doing this year, intentional or not, is creating emptiness. And I mean scrub-brushed, sparklingly-empty emptiness.
Stillness.
Peace.
Getting at the stuff long buried and giving it a good scraping. In the most gentle, easy way. No struggle, simply eliminating what I don’t need.
Oh, and finding freaking metaphors everywhere.
(I mean, hello, it’s kind of annoying.)
Related posts:
Empty
2009 (and I feel fine)
Stuck, in a moment
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Twitter: AmberStrocel
February 10, 2010 at 8:26 pm
Well, I’m enjoying your metaphors, so maybe that brings you some comfort. There is something positive about the Universe being clear with us about the work we’re meant to be doing right now, isn’t there?
Amber´s last blog ..Walk to Nowhere
Eileen, I feel like I’m right there with you! We live in my husband’s family home, and I am constantly scraping away or throwing out old family “gunk,” be it debris, abandoned bedlinens, or outdated beliefs and behaviors. To the children, it will always be “Grandma’s House,” and I know it will never feel truly mine. But I am scraping too, my outdated beliefs and behaviors, so that my mind and heart are clean and have some empty spaces where my own family “gunk” used to be. The whole experience reminds me of Walden, where Thoreau talks about scraping old bricks for building, scraping life down to the very marrow to life fully and freely. Good stuff you have here. I’m really enjoying your thoughts!
Wow …. I really like your blog hence my commenting (a month after the fact – chuckles). I am of the opinion based on personal experience that when there is something “The Universe” wants us to do, we are presented with many signs all over the show and I suspect that that is what you are experiencing. I have changed direction dramatically and regularly since 2005 and only now find myself being still for a moment and when I feel overwhelmed by all this new “emptiness”, I remember another favourite little mantra which goes: “in order to bring in the new, we must get rid of the old first”.