The act of cleaning (the kind that involves kitchens, bathroom, bedroom, basically all living-area spaces) is a thing I do not enjoy. I will (and often do) choose anything, dental surgery, long walks around the neighborhood, cleaning out my online photo library, to avoid it. If it becomes absolutely unavoidable, I’ll write CLEAN in big letters on my calendar, rope in Dennis, find a good podcast or audiobook, dig out the apron from the bottom kitchen drawer, set my jaw and go to it. The last time I entered this state of mind was during the final January 6 Committee hearing, which was on December 19th and only lasted about an hour and twenty minutes. Too short for usual three hours+ it usually takes me if I’m rolling solo. This time I did have Dennis splitting the load but I’d already listened to the podcast I’d wanted to cue up (Bone Valley, highly recommend!!) and so tuned up Ezra Klein talking to Rick Rubin about his new book The Creative Act, which will be an amazing audio moment for long walks or, er, the next cleaning session.

Toward the end, as I was cleaning my least favorite appliance, the stove, my apron pocket got caught on the oven handle and as I moved, it began to rip. A flash of rage, something that, to be honest, had been flickering in me all afternoon, flared. I purposefully carried on pulling away so that the caught bit continued to rip until the pocket was no longer a pocket, more an air flap making the apron pretty useless. Once I’d stopped moving, a series of moments rippled through me: That felt great…for about one second; what is in me that made me do that?; greetings old friend, anger. A flush of recognition swirled with a heavy dose of heartbeat. These emotions are no surprise. I’ve tamped down my inner anger/rage plenty over the course of my life. Nowadays, recognizing it, I feel less shame or knee-jerk shove-back-in-emotional-closet and more acknowledgement. A kind of well-hello-here-you-are-again sensation. At that moment, in that last room of scrubbing, two hours in, I was angry because what I’d really wanted to do with those hours was write this blog. Of course that was made visible when the oven caught the apron and I tugged with destructive purpose. This anger obfuscation, while not a Spencer-only family trait by any means, is pretty foundational in my upbringing. (Lordy, self-exploration never ends.)

Just the day before I’d stepped inside my dad’s house to find the cords around the TV all at sixes-and-sevens. What happened here, I wondered. The thought had actually come out my mouth so my dad answered, “It’s broken again.” Translation: a button on the remote control had been pushed which had then thrown the whole system out of wack. This had happened many times before. I’d used my masking tape skills to make that remote an easier thing to use. But still…. (Side-note: I have discovered an entire cottage industry of accessories found online designed for elderly and other health-impaired folx that make life simpler. Amazing.) Being well-versed in the art of realigning the TV-remote with the cable, I looked around for the clicker (or bippy-box, what the thing’s now called in that house on Bryant St. OK, another diversion: How I notice that, as in the beginning of language-learning we use simple rhyme-y words for stuff we don’t yet know the names of, then at the end as words fade away and language-learning almost reverses itself, using those simple rhyme-y words come back into play.) Glancing around his living room, I spotted the remote in the corner. Upon retrieval, it became pretty clear that the thing had been tossed at a high enough velocity to render it useless. Broke&busted. I showed it to him and he wondered out loud: “What happened?,” then after a moment of silence and recognition, knowing he was bullshitting a bit, he said “Why do I do that?” by which we both knew he meant throw things. Of course I recognized it. The way frustration bubbles up, then over. The moment when things sail because there isn’t any pause to make room for another way to do it. To sort out the anger. The frustration that at 97, stuff is just more confusing. Harder to access. He’s absolutely aware that there are things that will take more than he wants to (or can) give in order to figure it all out. Honestly, when I have to tackle certain technology, I go into cold sweats. I, too, am stunned by how many buttons are on a TV/cable remote for no seemingly useful reason. I’m also the one who will ignore the Apple notifications that tell me it’s update time until I absolutely can’t look away anymore (I know, I know).

For him, though, stuff he’s done all his life as a single man (for over four decades now) challenges him in a way that dominoes into pitching stuff. Across rooms. Into corners. Onto floors. He’s aware enough to get that there are things he can’t access anymore—whether mentally or physically. And that’s a pain. Over the course of the afternoon, I also found both of the cordless phones out of their chargers and underneath various pieces of furniture. It was as if anything handheld with buttons had to be disappeared. The phones luckily lived to work another day. The TV remote was disposed into the device dustbin.

It’s not like we don’t discuss. When he says “I wish I could do more” and “I just get so mad,” then he’s all in on talking about it. There are also a good amount of shrugs signaling “Well, that happened” and he’s not gonna go there. I recognize the words and the shrugs. I do them myself even though I can’t speak to how for him time ticking may add another layer of exasperation to the equation. A few weeks ago, a couple of days after his birthday, when he said, “I really should vacuum this place” he quickly added “but I hate to clean and at my age every day is a gift so I don’t want to spend it doing something I don’t want to do.” Touché, sir. I join you in that. Every day a gift even though, for me, the hours inside some random (spaced very far apart) days include holding a sponge to wipe down the stove-oven unit (grrr). And yet, as Rick Rubin talked about in the Ezra interview, entering situations with an intention as to how it might (or how you would like it to) go is a wonderful way to move into moments with a modicum of awareness. Not in a magical thinking kind of way like, “I want this oven to clean itself” but maybe more “I’ll be happier once this thing is cleaned and I don’t have to feel a prick of annoyance every time I look at that dirty surface.” And as I listened to Rick Rubin say that very wise thing, I was pulling steadily away from the oven handle, watching the pocket rip off my apron, and feeling some rage-y bits bouncing around my insides. Funny that. Awareness. Sure I’ve got it. My dad’s got it. There it is. Start again.

(Post-Script of great importance: my writing partner/great friend and writer Judy Piercey, has her debut, The Fierce, just published. Amazing and click here to see.)