From the Introduction
Three things in life are certain: death, taxes, and dirt. No matter how hard or frequently we clean, we can’t escape the dust, soot, grime, soil, crumbs, and clutter that are bound to besmirch our homes. Domestic cleaning is among the most humbling and recurrent of all human conditions. For dust thou art. Set thy house in order. Cleanliness is next to godliness. On your knees, humans! Amen. And so were invented Mr. Clean, the washing machine, the dishwasher, the self-cleaning oven, the vacuum cleaner, the DustBuster, the Swiffer, the HEPA filter, the cleaning woman/person/service/housekeeper/nanny, the legal and illegal immigrant day worker, the stay-at-home dad, the housewife, and various other time- and labor-saving devices.
Our housekeeping styles express who we are on the most intimate psychological level. In cleaning (much as in writing) we make sense of our lives, sort our messes, restore order to our psyches, work out our anger and frustration, rediscover the beauty in our lives, and express our love for (and resentment toward) others. Housecleaning is the daily/weekly/monthly—or in some cases, quarterly, semiannual, or way-long-overdue—necessary ritual of restoration. For many, it’s an ongoing, constant occupation; for others, an easily overlooked distraction.
In these pages, thirty-eight talented writers come clean on how they deal with dirt in their physical, psychological, and relational environments. Male and female, spanning generations, our contributors are journalists, essayists, memoirists, novelists, and short story writers who also happen to be hoarders and tossers, clutterbugs and neatniks, slackers and dust-busters.
Following our authors from bathrooms to kitchens, living rooms to bedrooms, nurseries to studies, we peer through their streaky or spotless windows while they empty their closets, vacuum the rugs, wax their floors, gather their dust bunnies, load their dishwashers, scrub their sinks, all the while confronting their spouses, children, parents, roommates — and their own habits. Reading their stories, we learn about their origins, aspirations, pet peeves, obsessions, and cleaning tips.
Embedded in these contemporary narratives are traces of the shift in domestic ideals from generation to generation, into the new millennium. We’ve come a long way from the idealized, smiling, be-aproned housewife of the 1950s, rebellion and the birth of feminism in the explosive ’60s and freewheeling ’70s, the rise of divorce and the single- and working-parent household, inflation and recession in the ’80s and ’90s. The Collyer brothers and Bouvier Beales, were they alive today, would likely be diagnosed with OCD and have their choice of Hoarders Anonymous or Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors. And how many of our mothers, in their cleaning-frenzied heyday, might today have been in need of therapeutic intervention?
In this age of unprecedented time pressure, when space is at a premium, Container Stores are scattered around cities and shopping malls, and household cleansers are a potent chemical brew, we are faced with new dilemmas in dealing with dirt and clutter. As our stuff overflows our closets and attics into landfills and oceans, the ability to find creative solutions is imperative. Clutter has also gone cyber, as evidenced by the digital info-glut that besieges our minds and our hard drives. As an antidote to the time spent staring into monitors, housecleaning can be for some — myself included — a way of reconnecting to material, nonvirtual reality.