You are what you do

I've become an effing housekeeper. A cleaning lady, a maid. I have nothing against housekeepers, many of my best friends are housekeepers. In fact I once was a housekeeper of the other kind. The one that recieved a meager salary in exchange for my hours of nail destroying, bleach inhaling, back breaking labour. I rather liked it. It gave me a sense of accomplishment and pride, I listened to true crime podcasts and quietly judged the people that hired me. The hoarders, the shabby chic overloaders, the comfortables who didn't own a single plate worth less than two hundred crowns. There were the old ladies who had done all the cleaning and just wanted to have someone walk around in their house. The widowers who tried operating the washing machine with catastrophic results. The graphic design startup with their dusty screens, empty kitchens and dirty bowls of cat food. 

But mostly, there was a pay check.

At home, I don't get a pay check. I don't get a sense of recognition from my customers and I certainly draw no pride from removing five layers of pasta sauce with soy mince from the kitchen chairs. 

Years ago I split my waking hours between running a summertime café, a year round online superfood store, my kids, and worrying about finances and the climate. The one place I found solace was in felting and in Carl Honoré.  His book, "In Praise of Slowness", made me realise I needed to slow down and simplify my existence. Enjoy the little things in life, baking sourdough bread and drinking komboucha. I did the "baking sourdough bread"-thing and started a perpetual kombucha brew that eventually was used (very effectively too) as vineagar. But I also kept on running a company on the verge of bankruptcy, got two more kids, moved to a 500 square meters house and, yes, I kept on felting. 

I'm in another place now. I now split my hours between bookstagramming, writing, working and cleaning. You'll notice I didn't mention hanging out with my kids. That's because I don't. I clean. I doubt they'd recognize me if they met me outside the home, all they know to look for is an awkwardly bent back over the mopping bucket, the neck of someone scrubbing the kitchen cabinets and dissatisfied grunts ment to keep them away. My husband grunts just as much, he just sounds a bit manlier.

I wish there was a way to live where the arrival of the school bus didn't make me long for the moment my kids go to bed so that I can remove that four day old stain of carrot soup from the carpet. The kids deserve to be longed for in their awake state, it's a human right. Just as it should be a human right to take showers so scolding hot that they just about give you third degree burns all over your body. 

So next year, 2021, is going to be my turn around year. My year in praise of Carl Honoré. My year of slow and simple living and of laughing my way through the house, ecologically sound microfiber duster in one hand, herbal tea in the other.