Scrub Stove, Blow Driveway

It is the 11-year anniversary of my father’s death and I do not feel like I have done one thing today to honor him. I may try to sneak in a walk and wrench myself away from domestic nirvana for an hour but I feel like I should give him more than that. That I should give me more than that. More time, more space, less clutter.

The best it got so far was scrubbing the burners on the stove so hard my arms hurt a little and blowing every leaf and speck of dirt off the driveway to the best of my ability. It reminds me of the saying, “Chop wood, carry water” which my dad always loved. Doing the daily chores and using them as mindful meditation – getting lost in the rhythm and finding your balance. Thinking, breathing, doing.

The last time I scrubbed the burners so hard they shone my friend Kris was in her final days of her battle with breast cancer. Today, I felt compelled to scrub again. I can’t cure cancer or bring my dad back but by gol, I can have the cleanest burners in all of West Meade. It’s not much but it’s something. It’s a small accomplishment, I’ve gotten something done and sort of lost myself in the process. Blowing the driveway was a bit more challenging. Kids kept running out, needing something (a snack, a band-aid, to tattletale), and it wasn’t quite as fulfilling. I wanted to lose myself in the noise and rhythm of my progress but my kids had other plans. But those burners, ahhhh. Ajax, a magic eraser sponge, and elbow grease – what more is there? They look the best they’ve looked in six months.

And that may be the shrine to my father this year. Clean burners. It gets smaller and seemingly less symbolic every year. I used to tell my husband I needed to have a few hours to myself – where have those hours gone? Doesn’t my dad deserve a few undistracted hours of me? Don’t I?

I’m tired. And still so sad from my dear friend Terri’s losses over the past month. I feel like molasses is running through my veins – an emotional hangover, my brother called it. Maybe that’s why the best from me today is simple domestic chores: I grocery shopped, made tuna fish, a white bean chicken chili, folded five loads of laundry, scrubbed those burners, unpacked my and Sage’s suitcases from our Michigan run, picked up Taggart and our neighbor friend Lily, fed them snacks, and went out and blew the driveway. I could hear them playing music (my dad would have loved that), I could hear Sage screaming (happy screams, come to find out), and like I said, I managed the tattletaling, boo-boos, and snack attacks all with blower in hand.

Maybe that is my best. And maybe I simply accept it and say it’s O.K. As I type, my husband has taken the kids outside so I can have at least this mental space, to commemorate today. So I’ll take it. I’ll think without interruption and type without having to answer a question. I’ll cry as I re-read this and think about how much I miss my dad and his unique, inimitable presence in my life.

It’s gotten easier in some ways and harder in others. I have found a peace in my relationship with my father that has grown deeper with each passing year; the hard part is watching my kids grow and knowing there would have been a very special mark he’d have made on them that I can only mimic. So there I am – scrubbing and blowing. And there my dad was – chopping wood and carrying water on forty acres of land outside Traverse City. No running water, no electricity, no phone. A teepee, a trailer, an open-air outhouse. To each, his/her own, my father often said. For me today, I chose domestic nirvana. It was everything. It was nothing. It was something. It is what it is.