The house is so beautiful right now. Clean, organized, surfaces free of the clutter that makes me feel a bit depressed and out of sorts. I'm a tidy soul. I like things to be in their proper place: books on bookshelves, paper in neat piles for going through, items put away after use, and dirty clothes in the hamper. I feel good when my house, my desk, my environment is neat as a pin.
But it rarely happens. I live with a person who does not mind clutter and generates it at an amazing rate. I tend to avoid tedious chores like dusting and scrubbing the walls, so I'm not claiming to be the ne plus ultra neat freak. However, after fifteen years of living with my husband we have long since decided on compromises so neither of us feels put upon.
It's really very simple. His tv room is his and I never go in there to clean, though I frequently go in there to watch tv. The rest of the house is public space and is to be kept neat, or at least that's the idea. In fact, it generally does work like that with a few exceptions. Socks tend to get left around the place but only until I spot them and roar about it. Newspapers lie scattered across the table until I pile them into the corner and make John roar because I haven't bothered to keep them in date order. We're both bad about leaving shoes lying around: me, because I kick them off as soon as I get home and I tend to wear more than one pair a day, and John because he has eighteen identical pairs of tennis shoes which he takes off in one room and puts on a different pair in another when it's time to walk the dog.
Of course, having pets means always cleaning up. Everyone's housetrained, but a pet is a messy being, always shedding or flinging their food onto the floor and under things, puking hairballs or dinner when overexcited. Kind of like having perpetual two year olds around. I wonder why we thought we didn't want to be parents? At least we would have moved beyond this stage eventually.
So having company over is an excellent excuse to get the socks into the hamper, the dishes done, the carpet spots cleaned, the Imelda Marcos syndrome under control, and newspapers put out into the recycling bin. And then for two days, sometimes three, I get to revel in the spacious airness of a home without clutter. It looks like the interior from a design magazine but with fewer pillows and an enormous homemade cat tree in the front window. It's so soothing to walk from room to room and not have the eye disrupted by something out of place. I love this.
And this is why we invite people over. Because it's the only time we achieve this blessed state of absolute order.
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