Page Two
Forgotten dreams were waiting for me all along. Discovering the nature of what fills my heart with joy will be a lifelong journey. That’s good, because I have faith that future adventures will be enriching, no matter what age I happen to be when I reach them. But remembering that truth between the ups and downs of daily living is where I frequently lose sight of my vision.
There is a painting in my studio right now, resting on my easel in an awkward stage of incompletion. I had to stop working on it while tending to the other more pressing matters in the family. Just when I think, "I have some time to paint tomorrow," the phone rings and plans change. Some days pass without that beckoning call, but I stare off into space waiting for it anyway while still recovering from the latest traumatic event. Doubts pick at my subconscious; will I find the inspiration I had when I put down my paintbrush so many weeks ago? Will I ever find pleasure in a project that has somehow become tangled in the emotions of a separate, turbulent situation?
I’ve found myself wandering through the house, aimless and unproductive. I repeatedly glance at the intrusive phone, expecting it to announce the next stressful dilemma. Or is it safe to move on?
I pause, broom still in hand, and realize that I have forgotten how to breathe.
As I stepped into my kitchen the image of a woman who lives two houses away came into my head. She sweeps the walkway from her front door and the entire adjoining driveway nearly every day. She doesn’t speak a word of English and I struggle to remember anything intelligible from my fourth grade Spanish lessons. All I have managed to accomplish so far is to point at the rose bushes in front of her house and say they are beautiful. I hope that’s what I said; at least she smiled and nodded politely in return.
A small smile spread across my face as I recalled my pathetic attempt to speak with her. "Pushing a broom needs no language to communicate purpose," I consider as I continue to herd crumbs and cat hair in practiced sweeps, corralling a few dust bunnies at the base of the refrigerator and spider webs clinging in the narrow space between it and the wall.
Sweeping the sidewalk daily strikes me as having cultural roots, perhaps. No matter how poor you might be or whatever difficulties may have arrived at your door, you can show pride and strength in making what you have presentable and announcing to the world, "I’m ready." There are people living in huts who actually sweep the bare dirt floors in an act of metaphysical cleansing.
I am guilty of not sweeping every day. I step over a piece of dry cat food knowing if I pick it up, more will be there tomorrow. But I’m rethinking that now. Maybe a daily dance with the broom is more than it appears on the surface, so to speak. Something beyond housework. What if it is a ritual purification of the spirit, a promise of a new day with a fresh start? It could become, for me, a representation of refusal to wait for the phone to ring and determination to move forward.
I tapped the contents of the dustpan into the trash and discovered I felt relaxed and was still smiling. Start to finish it was such a simple action that didn’t even rob five minutes out of my day.
The clouds are lifting. What is a broom anyway, but an enormous therapeutic paintbrush! I’m ready to sweep paint across that unfinished canvas.
©2010 Roberta McReynolds for SeniorWomen.com
