Cleaning Up

I have been lying in bed in the dark of the early morning thinking of my day, trying to muster the mental energy for the final organization of the papers I will be using in the brief lecture series of eight sessions that commence on Friday.  On the one hand, what could be more reflexive action than talking of ancient Greek tragedy to a group, something I have done possibly thirty or forty times in the past years, yet, on the other,,--oh, that Greek insistence upon symmetry in thinking--it has been twenty years before since I stood before a class.  So the tingles of excitement and dread are animating, what? to jump up? no, to burrow deeper into the sheets in the darkened room and fantasize doing things.  My desk top is where I shall work, and at first I must confront the various papers lying on it.  This is always a moment of ridicule, should my husband become privy to my plans.  He points out that i have no organizational skills, or rather in his words, am a mess.  There are perhaps twenty to thirty notes to myself, flyers needing to be looked to, bank notices I can't quite yet absorb, that sort of thing, and since I don't really use a folder system they remain out and about for me to spy when the impulse to think about them grabs me.  This, my husband notes, is what is called "poor organization." But as I lie here I cannot help but think of him, Mr. Neat Desk, Mr. Former Assistant Superintendent of Schools.  Let's turn to the dining room table or better yet to the kitchen, to the refrigerator.  In the cold closet we will find the remains of oyster stuffing from Christmas dinner, of a dip from the same meal, of a variety of cooked and discarded items from other moments, all sinking into decay, which he cannot, no cannot throw out.  What is more the counters have small portions of well wrapped Italian Christmas bread now rigid as a board, the table we eat at has a large BJs bought container of peanuts now going stale,  I could continue this survey but you get the drift.  Here we see another form of organization which I handle with the disposal in the middle of the sink and the trash barrel by the door.  For some reason he is free to remark in condescending tones upon my desk's disorder, but woe for me should I bring up the rotting masses that needing discarding.  Throwing away food, profligate behavior, waste, the dread spectre of waste, and all I have done is point out some mold on a tired old fruit dessert that really needs to get shoved.   Neither of us can let go, but for each very different items are at stake.