Kitchen Dirt

I don't understand my own mind some days. Sometimes I can think of nothing interesting to say or write; other days my mind is a whirl and swirl with thoughts and emotions and ideas. Some days the only thing I can do is stare out my window and hope for inspiration; other days it is all I can do to stop myself from going on endlessly.

Today, of all things, I find myself half way in the middle. There are a bunch of things about which I would love to write, angers to chew on and injustices to revolt against. Yet I feel no passion for this. Here I am with ideas and no focal point from which to launch them. Here I am with feelings and emotions yet with no urgency or desire to share them.

Perhaps I should just talk about cleaning the kitchen. This is one of the more challenging tasks in my life, one of the things that seems to find a way to forever elude me. It seems my kitchen is only truly clean when Rosa comes on Friday to do her best. Unfortunately often that is not enough. There are things she misses, things only I can see thanks to my advantaged viewpoint. There are spots on the floor under the cupboard overhang, little clumps of dust neath the edge of the fridge, stains on the lower cupboard doors at foot level, all only visible, it seems, to me at my lowered eye level.

The challenge for me in this arena is my inability. You might think that being down low here, seated in my rolling inspection station, it would be easy for me to reach down and wipe up the spots and stains that assault my marginally fastidious nature. Well, it's not. That's the challenge of having failed legs; not only can I not stand up, I also cannot bend down. To reach these low hanging smudges, I must somehow get down there. Yet in the act of getting low I may be brought low, falling out of my wheelchair.

What I need is someone to get down there and wipe where I show the way. I know, it's a lot to ask. I've tried asking Ricky only to suffer his rejection that the smudges even exist. Yet I see them; they are not a fantasy or creation of my need. They are there, leering at me, just out of my ability. I've asked Rosa yet she seems unable to see them either, or perhaps she is unable to reach them just as I am, only for different reasons that seem mysterious to me.

So dirty spots in my kitchen is what I must write about today. Of all the mundane things in life, this is the most mundane. Of all of the importances we face, this is the least. Yet here I am, helpless in their affront; here I am with a challenge that is just out of my reach, compelled once again to accept my inabilities and limitations. Humph.