Elbow Grease
As much as I love a good cleaning product, I love elbow grease. I don’t want an effortless experience. My oldest son says, “Mari, it’s not ‘Work smarter, not harder’ but ‘Work harder smarter’” and I love that. Good effort doesn’t mean resisting, fighting, forcing, or pushing. It’s just effort.
When I go to my daughter’s cross country meets, I see kids having efforted for the love of the game. I tear up watching them strive, knowing they’ve trained. They’re not expecting to finish with a better time than the last meet without efforting. They also know when they’re feeling injury pain compared with the pain that comes from a good workout, from micro-tears in their muscles which allow them to build more muscle and in turn more strength, speed, endurance, and enjoyment of the race.
Elbow grease is a sort of love-in-action, efforting toward a desired outcome without the expectation of not having to work for it. It’s also not efforting just for the outcome. I feel so much pride when I start with a grimy room and finish with clean floors and baseboard, cabinets, toilets… you name it. It’s devotion and caring, the willingness to put in the body effort on top of what the cleaning products and supplies can provide. For me, there’s a sort of power in knowing I can make it just a bit better if I scrub a bit harder or a bit more (not taking paint off the walls here… just saying).
And the point of “more scrubbing” isn’t to have a sterile outcome. I want to restore the life of the space rather than remove it. The scrubbing is showing up – for my counters, which is part of my space, which is part of my home. And it’s the same for the homes I clean. I want to restore the vitality of the space, removing the accumulation of ick that has built up, leaving the beautiful *stuff* of life behind. And I actually love the accumulation! It’s evidence of life, of living, of having lived in a space (I’ve mentioned this before and will bring more in another post).
In engaging directly with the ick, I’m in a way acting in gratitude for the thing I’m cleaning as well as for this body doing the cleaning. And it’s embodied gratitude, not the kind I can hold in my mind for a second and let slip away as another thought infiltrates my experience. “Oh, yeah, what was I thinking…?? I’ve forgotten now, but yes, I do need to schedule that driver’s license appointment for my son…” and boom, gratitude-thought gone. Not that those don’t matter. They do. Every bit of gratitude is orienting.
Not all efforting is visible; internal elbow grease is perhaps even more important (?), like taking a deep breath when I find yet another empty protein bar wrappers on the floor next to my son’s bed. Or just allowing and accepting the nine-year old version of “clean” after dinner. If it’s truly the journey and not the destination that matters… In a way, cleaning decades-long neglected cabinets or stubborn shower doors is just the training mat for really using the internal elbow grease.
And efforting is also a way to come into my body more fully, and to be with my surroundings more fully. I love cleaning wood floors because I love to clean in the direction of the planks. It’s a kind of challenge, and (without anthropmorphizing too much) it’s almost as if that’s what the wood grain *wants*. Sometimes a surface can seem to want a different texture of cloth. I know it’s funny to think in terms of things “wanting” but it’s how it feels to me, and I love being playful with it. It’s only through feeling the build-up through the cloth that I can get a sense of what’s best to use. Harder isn’t always better – sometimes a lighter touch, a different direction, or even a pre-spray/soak can be helpful. The right tools for the job make the *right* kind of elbow grease work.
Efforting is also a bit of a surrender to me. I often repeat to myself, “This is what’s happening right now.” It’s an acceptance – resisting or denying reality doesn’t allow me to engage with it fully or head-on. Acknowledging the reality allows me to more fully give in to the project. Truly give in. Not to give up and go ahead and do it because [fill in the blank], which is infused with reluctance, resistance, begrudgingness.
It’s to really surrender and be in inquiry: What beautiful thing could happen if I do this task with meraki? This is a Greek word that means to leave a bit of your soul or essence in what you do, to do what you’re doing with love, dedication, and attention. And somehow, by leaving a piece of myself in my work, I’m replenished fully and more so; my cup runneth over.. It’s when I hold back that I feel depleted, like “Oh, I could have done more there…”
If I’m lucky, and this isn’t the point or aim of it all, but if I’m lucky I get into flow and almost forget what I’m doing. I forget myself (and goodness, does it feel good to me to lose self-consciousness for a while) and the task becomes the matter at hand.
And sometimes, even with good cleaning products, good supplies, and good elbow grease, the ick is found to be a irremovable stain. And that’s a perfect opportunity to love it as it is and say, yet again, “This is what’s happening right now.” No regrets, no depletion, no shame. Maybe it’s a good poke from the Cosmic Joke, a reminder I’m human, and those moments, paradoxically, are what connect us.
