Strange Ritual, Party of 1

I’m doing something right now that probably doesn’t seem like a big deal to most people. But it’s a semi-ritual of mine. It’s not perfect tonight. Perfection requires quiet and I don’t have that. Caelyn’s fan is turning. The dryer’s spinning. The low murmur of the Mavericks is slipping out of the bedroom.

But it’s close. Caelyn’s asleep. Chris is working. It’s dark, except for the candle on the end of the bar and the Christmas lights on top of the kitchen cabinets. And it’s clean.

I cleaned most of yesterday and the last half of today. I started out “cheat” cleaning, but once I got into the kitchen, I started Windexing the mirrored backsplash and decided to run with it. You’re probably thinking that I’m sitting here enjoying the fruits of my labor, and there’s nothing too unusual about that.

I can’t prove it, but you’re wrong. The actual cleanliness isn’t key. It’s just one element, and really, it doesn’t have to be clean. Tidy would cut it.

I’m not sure how to describe what’s going on or why I like it. When I lived with my parents, I never thought there was anything special about sitting in the dark by myself after everyone was in bed. (I thought it was borderline creepy.) I guess it started when I lived at Riatta Ranch with Amy. I did most of the cleaning, usually when Amy was out with Jonathan. Every few months, I’d crank up the stereo and go at every corner, except Amy’s room.

I remember one time Amy and Jonathan came home to the Beach Boys and Amy, a music major, said, “WHAT are you listening to?” Jonathan cracked up, “Um, those are the Beach Boys, honey.” Amy gave her classic reply whenever she encountered something everyone seemed to know about that she didn’t: “I lived in England for two years in elementary school!” She had the same reaction to “Post-It Notes from the State Hospital,” but that’s a little more understandable.

Anyway, after the day of cleaning, I’d sit in the recliner with the nightlights on after Amy went to bed and just soak in the space. The experience was even stronger when I lived by myself at Curry Junction.

I don’t take time for these kinds of moments very often anymore. Or maybe the circumstances just don’t line up very often anymore. All the elements can be in place, but if my mood’s not right, it just doesn’t happen. But when it does, it’s, I don’t know, kind of like a communion with my space. It’s peaceful. It’s something that makes a place feel like it’s mine, my home, in a way that might only be rivaled by the feeling I get listening to a really good album alone on the floor or realizing I’m in the middle of one of those transcendent moments with someone I know I’ll never forget or sitting at the desk in the dim study, writing something I never knew I had in me, something I wouldn’t even know was mine if I didn’t still have the pen in my hand.

Oddly enough, I don’t have any pictures of our apartment in the dark when it’s tidy. This is the only picture of our place that I could find. I like being in there in the dark, so long as Caelyn’s asleep and not crying in the middle of the night.