I also remember my dad painstakingly sweeping the carpet, every morning. He would start at the far end, near the floor-to-ceiling windows with a wooden handled straw broom and a water-filled spray bottle. Slowly, methodically and with tiny little strokes, he would start at the far end and sweep the whole carpet clean. The sunlight streamed in through the large windows and caught the particles of dust as they started to rise. Dad would then stop and give a few sprays to the air from the squirt bottle and the particles would sink back down to the ground, to be swept further along the way. As he moved towards the Glenwood cook stove at the other end of the one room, the carpet would be left behind sparklingly pristine, like the day we brought it home. All the fibers of the rug were pulled upright and ready for my fingers to create paths or my cars to make faint impressions of roads.
I composed this piece while sweeping my own kitchen at the end of a busy day. The spots on the linoleum not coming nearly as clean as that carpet. The pieces of lint and old hair elastics found under the kick board are never as beautiful or impressive as the light fairies playing in the dust, that flew freely around till moistened, and then came to rest again, lightly, on the green carpet. The small pile of dirt and dust bunnies and lost beer bottle caps are nothing compared to the halo of light behind my father as he worked his way towards me and the remaining red painted floor around the wood cook stove.
My father used to say that his daily sweeping of the green carpet was his work out. (Sustainable living, off the grid is a constant work out.) Sweeping with such strong and short strokes requires all the core muscles to tighten. The upper body twists slightly against the lower, working the side stomach muscles. If done efficiently and vigorously it can be almost as breath catching as a hundred jumping jacks. And of course, the arm muscles begin to feel the burn, requiring a switch of hand positions to keep up enough power to clear out the dirt from down in the carpet pile. Methodically and with power to rival a steam cleaning vacuum, my father swept our carpet every morning, working out the kinks of farm chores along the way.
I don't sweep very often in our house. My husband and I divide up the chores; I cook and do laundry, and he cleans the kitchen and sweeps the floor. He is also methodical about his sweeping. He sweeps the hidden gems out from under the kick board and works his way from door to door. But he also moves the box of paper towels and the small wooden play kitchen, to sweep the small space behind them. He gets into the crack between the stove and the semi-free standing granite ell. He sweeps and scoops it all into the trash, indiscriminate of hair ties, gum wrappers, lost crayons, treasured plastic rings or bits of dried play dough. He is singularly focused on sweeping, working out the kinks of his office job along the way.
Our living room has off-white berber carpet that covers the whole floor and runs up the stairs. I vacuum it with a big, loud clunky vacuum that scares my children, sending them shrieking up onto the couches. Perhaps someday they will look back and tell stories of me cleaning the living room carpet, or of their Papa sweeping the kitchen floor. They may tell of the dust bunnies and hair accessories carried off to the giant red trash barrels, or treasures daringly rescued at the moment of obliteration. I am sure it will sound much different than my story, but also much different than it currently seems to me as I move on to the play area to vacuum up the pieces of crackers and scraps of paper left behind by their block and doll play.