Art Housekeeping Therapy

I have a secret love for housekeeping like a bad painter who wants to paint anyway. Give me a nice quiet day alone and I will charge forth with my list and housekeeping tools like a kid would on Christmas day.

I definitely didn't get this gene from my mom, it must have come from my grandma who is a CEO at housekeeping and a semester studying "Home Economics: the art and science of keeping home and husband" certainly helped. Although, when I took home economics I pictured myself in jeans with a beach bum  husband, with a dog and two cats rather than wearing a skirt and entertaining someone I didn't like.

If being joyfully unemployed has done anything for me in the last few months it has refreshed my love for housekeeping. The visual and sensory joys of housekeeping are a rare secret that magazines will never tell you. Magazines try to convince us that cooking should be quick, that cleaning is painful and that we all need to purge our closets. However some of the most rewarding cooking is slow, and enjoying to clean one thing well is almost as nice as going to an art gallery or sculpture gallery. There are fewer things more beautiful than the steam coming off the potatoes or pasta, gleaming clear windows, the fresh scent of a drying pillow as it rests in the sun after having a bath, and vigorously attacking stubborn mold in the corners of the shower till they crumble away and you are left with a smart and shining tiles.

 My love for housekeeping is more like an art. I love the way steam looks and feels on almost anything: ironing, cooking a pot of boiled chestnuts, or smelling my sauce to see if they are smelling right.  And the look of a stack of perfectly folded towels and linens? Divine. I'm sure Salvator Dali would agree.

The steam feels so good on your face and cold hands in winter. 

 Ironing should be labeled as a therapeutic art. I'm sure many a day of mine would have gone better when I worked if I took an ironing break in my office like drawing or painting. What is my favorite medium of ironing? Table cloths and dishtowels. Is it unnecessary? Probably, but it makes that moment satisfying and beautiful. Feeling the crumpled cotton get warm and humid with the iron then transform into a smooth, hot flat surface is really nice. My least favorite medium of ironing? Shirts, they are too complicated like drawing with ink.

My refreshed love for housekeeping has reminded me of one of my favorite stories "A New England Nun" by Mary Freeman where the protagonist is in love with housekeeping.

"Louisa dearly loved to sew a linen scam, not always for use, but for the simple, mild pleasure which she took in it. She would have been loath to confess how more than once she had ripped a seam for the mere delight of sewing it together again. Sitting at her window during long sweet afternoons, drawing her needle gently through the dainty fabric, she was peace itself."


I'm not at that point because I also enjoy the chaos of cooking, the freedom of eating with abandon, the joy of living and creating a mess to clean in essence.

I am not sure how much longer I will get to enjoy the simple freedom and art of cooking and housekeeping, because for sure when I am gainfully employed the hours spent working will slip away the energy and time to clean and create. When I get back to work I am sure I will pine for my art-wifeing moments of pleasure. Nevertheless, for the next few days or weeks I will enjoy puttering around creating my little home like my art. It's funny, I even relate to Louisa with her dog, Cesar who is a good old beast in exile for being bad. Only my two fat cats are in exile because they have been indoor cats for far too long. I know they would love to leap and run outside but being indoor cats has  imprisoned them from their ability to recognize their own instincts. In a way, office work had that effect on me, imprisoning me in my office from being able to recognize my need for instincts of housekeeping. It really is a lost mixed medium art.

The color of the squash, the smell of the stew and the steam on my face is pure bliss. 

I love the way the potatoes glisten at the top of this shepherds pie. 

The smell of this crackling poblano pepper is divine. Also the blue from the stove lapping around the green pepper is breathtaking. 

Eggwhites

 Beating eggwhites should also be art-therapy. Have you ever beaten an eggwhite till it is stiff? You should try it. It releases so much tension and is satisfying. Crack an egg, separate the yolk out (if you don't want to toss the yolk then set it aside and you can make tiramisu). Then beat the heck out the egg white while turning the bowl. Just keep going. Hit it. Beat beat beat beat beat. You will forget anything else by the distraction of the clear yolk turning frothy. I should put my tiruamisu recipe up sometime so you can see something useful to make and delicious to taste after you finish your eggwhite therapy.

The chef at work. 

I would boil potatoes just to feel the steam and see the sun shine through it. 

My best bud

 I love washing broccoli rabe. You hack off all the ends, wash out your sink then fill it with water. It feels so good to push the broccoli into the pool of water.