Vacuuming Pastures (And Other Nonsensical Perfectionism)

Here’s this week’s reflection. I hope it resonates with you and ask that, if you enjoyed, please comment and share on your social media. Heartfelt thanks for all your support!

Keeping the light on for you,

Carol

My mother was the queen of domestic prowess. Nothing escaped her razor sharp scrutiny for disarray, even when eventually relying only on peripheral vision due to macular degeneration. One year on her birthday, I gave her a card showing an older woman vacuuming a horse pasture through a ramshackle wire fence; the caption: “A woman’s work is never done….”

Mom was not amused.

She didn’t seem to notice it was the perfect image of the degree of perfectionism we had been raised with in our home. But for her, using the sweeper was serious business, and shag carpeting – de rigueur at the time – was her art form. After vacuuming, phase two commenced with raking the fibers into uniformity, obliterating any trace of freshly delivered attention. We were forbidden to trod on her masterpiece. Walking a tightrope-wide path into adjacent areas was annoying at best, and painfully impractical the other 99.99 percent of the time.

Our sibling spirit animal was the cat, who, on Mom’s completion of floor duty, would immediately saunter tauntingly across that prairie of softness. Her hind end swayed in defiance as her sassy paws delivered noticeable dots of new texture as the shag perfection became trampled. Hearing Mom angrily mutter “damn cat!” would create a giggle and a discreet high five among my brothers and I as we slinked away to our rooms. God bless that metaphorical cat.

Although I did not inherit the repetitive vacuuming gene, unfortunately other compulsive demons have been genetically expressed.

Take writing for example. A good friend in college offered to edit my excessive tomes. She needed cash and I needed help. Chopping the fluff seemed easy for her, my work becoming far less tedious to both read and transport in those days of timber homicide. Querying this A-plus student about her technique, she replied “I’m just lazy! I don’t want to read OR write that long!”

She worked smarter, not harder – a wake-up call to my predilection for, albeit successful, academic excess. My practice of verbal ad nauseum had been honed over many years, an arduous process for me to pen and professors to peruse. I learned more does not necessarily equal better.

Fresh out of grad school and working in the city, a fondness for gourmet cooking and trendy dressing were the next extravagances to eventually dissect.

My new city slicker colleagues were convinced those of us from adjacent states regularly picked the corn from our teeth. Appointing myself to prove them wrong, I embarked on a new journey of excess.

It was joyous to explore this new upscale foodie heaven, and I could indeed nosh with the posh very comfortably. But a nurse colleague, also a trained chef, helped reroute my perspective.

Discussing an annual outdoor concert series she prepared food for, she informed me, “People don’t care what they eat there, they just want to be seen eating there!” Her edict was a gut punch, illuminating a prevalent stereotype in that locale I wanted to avoid.

But my lessons were still elusive. Having always enjoyed fashion, urban shopping was a candyland of seasonal trends in constant supply. Like an alcoholic in a liquor store, I shopped with reckless abandon, waxing poetic over my new friends Bloomies and Nordies. A comforting sigh on arrival was followed by hours of carefree browsing, usually ending in a shoe purchase.

Retail therapy was fun, but it also occupied a lot of unnecessary financial and mental real estate better served elsewhere. Truth be told I had been pathetically adept at ignoring my own vibe, just to prove a point. Jeans, t-shirts, and a big plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes was really my jam. And maybe a cute pair of flats.

Over the decades, I’ve come a long way, baby. While I still enjoy an occasional upscale dinner, a bowl of cereal and accompanying glass of wine also fortify me. A wardrobe now sporting several consignment pieces provides a statement to the loathing of fast fashion. Shopping is no longer the habit of choice, having been replaced with good conversation and human connection. And writing has thankfully turned into a much more succinct  passion. 

Age has brought a lot of release and loosening of the lingering appearance perfectionism that is probably equal parts nature and nurture. Laughter has been a powerful tonic on this journey. Like that damn cat, I’m committed to not only trample on, but run across my cognitive tape loops with reckless abandon to keep harsh convictions at bay. I only wish Mom had been able to take part in this fun. Since she was cremated, we kids missed out on placing that beloved carpet rake in her coffin.

In the immortal words of Erma Bombeck: “He who laughs….lasts.” As a recovering perfectionist, that is exactly what I plan to do.