From Top to Bottom

This is a more practical cleaning article and not universally applicable to situation and time. Sometimes we need to attack a whole space and clean it, rather than just spot clean the floor, take care of the standard post-meal kitchen mess, or tidy and vacuum the floor.

But this is also an article of deep gratitude and appreciation, of the lesson of re-contextualization, of learning lessons from others, and the value of having [dynamic] systems.

My mom taught me how to clean. I didn’t learn by watching her, I didn’t absorb it just by being around her. She *taught* me. I’m quite sure my dad’s mom influenced this; she was a Montessori principal/teacher, and learning/practicing life skills from an early age was a core value. My mom took time to teach me how to wipe a table (clear it of dishes/condiments/napkins, wipe the entire surface to remove the chunks of stuff, wipe those chunks/crumbs into the hand, throw that stuff in the trash, then spray, wipe, rinse the cloth, and wipe again). She taught me how to sweep, how to mop, how to make a bed, how to do laundry, how to wash windows. She taught me how to notice what needs to be cleaned and how to take care of it.

I don’t do everything exactly the way she taught me. Sometimes I wipe the crumbs/chunks right onto the floor (I do this when I know I’ll be sweeping soon). And sometimes I don’t sweep right away! When there’s rice on the floor, I have found that if I wait until I’ve done the dishes, gotten the kids ready for bed, folded some laundry and prepared for the next day, I can go back and very easily sweep up dried rice (contrasted with trying to sweep wet rice, which feels like an act of futility, or perhaps even art, with smeared rice leaving weird matte finish streaks on the glossy floor surface).

I have taken what she’s taught me and used it, and in the using of it I’ve learned what works for me and what doesn’t. I’ve re-contextualized it for it to make sense for me in my experience. My mom would have been horrified to leave rice under the table for a couple of hours. Honestly, I don’t love it, but that not-loving-it is enough to make my brain itch and remind me to go sweep it up later! And it’s so much more pleasurable to sweep the dried rice…

I’m so thankful to my mom that she taught me her systems with such precision, dedication, care, and attention. I’ve seen people go into cleaning relatively blind. Some don’t know the tools available for the job, and/or which of those might be most useful; some don’t *see* what’s dirty; some don’t understand about taking care of the cleaning tools/materials (a dirty mop can*not* clean a floor); some don’t have a where-to-start or an intended outcome – a system for completing the task.

And I have NO judgement toward these people. There are plenty of areas in my life where I have NO systems, where sometimes it’s glaringly obvious, but sometimes I’m so blind to it I don’t even notice! What a gift to have that pointed out to me. It’s become increasingly clear to me how incredibly valuable it is to receive a piece of information from someone that is about a *system* compared with advice for a specific task or goal to achieve or strive for.

And on that note…

Gravity is amazing, and we can use it to our benefit. Knowing things will fall down, let’s consider a process for cleaning. It’s good to decide beforehand the level of cleaning you’re getting yourself into. If you decide you’re cleaning from a certain level down, but then decide to go back above it, you could dirty/dusty your space unintentionally. Pick your top height, have a look, make a decision.

For me, mostly the highest things I’m cleaning are the tops of the door frames. I might have some spot cleaning on a wall high up, or maybe some cobwebs in corners, but that’s incredibly rare in my home. I used to live in a home with fans, and fan blades would be at the top. As I clean the trim, I might also notice a wall heater that needs some love, or the outlet and switch covers. Cleaning top to bottom as a system isn’t so rigid or strict in that those items can’t or shouldn’t be touched until later. It’s just that door frames are a bit out of sight/out of mind (for me), and while I can certainly see the outlet covers gathering ick, I don’t ever see the top of the door frames, and as I go around the walls, I want to clean down.

There we are at the edges (walls, doors…), going in a relative downward way, allowing things to fall. At this point, unless a significant amount of stuff is going to be tracked around the house/room and/or made more difficult to clean later, I leave what falls where it is. From walls/doors we move inward. What’s the highest thing there is to dust?

Hate dusting? Maybe hate is too strong a word. But there are definite resistances to dusting. You’re not alone. Dusting can be a good time to re-evaluate what you have that needs dusting and decide what to leave out, what to re-arrange, what to tuck inside a less dusty spot. For very dusty areas, a pre-vacuum with a handheld vac can be helpful. One thing I do to get over the inner dislike of dusting is to remember all that dust-stuff becomes part of what I’m breathing. Outside, the wind does the dusting. Inside, things settle and accumulate. We live in artificially breezeless spaces (unless we create some artificial breeze for airflow, which can ultimately just move the dust around within the walls), so it takes care to keep the air we breathe clean. Dusting isn’t just about the surface, it’s about our bodies, too. More on ritual dusting in another post. For now, we move on.

Remember. Anything that is dusted will cause at least some dust/stuff to fall. The less you can stress about where it’s falling, what it’s falling on, the better for your well-being and enjoyment of cleaning. So if you need to put a towel or sheet below, do that! Material left to catch dust can be taken outside and shaken before being washed.

Trying to catch dust midair while it’s falling could be a fun video game-ish experience, but it could also be infuriating and actually kick up more dust. What feels good to just let settle? This speaks a bit to my blog post about things getting messier first. Resisting messiness is counter to the process.

The higher up work and dusting is usually lighter work (less elbow grease) than the higher traffic areas. So it can also be a good time to dust your headspace. What internal resistances are you holding onto? Some might need a little TLC, but we might just need a good head shake to let the ick fall and really get into the groove of something. Maybe there’s a bit of mental clutter. What can be re-arranged, what kind of mental hygiene might be helpful to an endeavor?

I liken the high-up dusting to taking some deep breaths before getting into something more challenging. It’s not particularly difficult, but it takes some attention, patience, re-focusing. And honestly, I love how it feels to have the dusting done, even if I’m being all amor fati with it (loving it for the sake of loving it).

Mirrors are often an exception to me for my top-to-bottom process. I might, depending on where they are and how they’re situated, do them last. So the mirror frame might fit into the initial sequence, but sometimes I like to leave them because other cleaning might cause splash-up and dirty them.

Moving downward, we come to the things we use more regularly, things which might require more effort. Best tools/cleaners for best job, allowing gravity to be a friend. We might also come to the shelves which hold the things we use regularly. Eventually we get to the floor. Floors are awesome! It’s what unites rooms and our access to them. Our feet, as our foundations, touch the foundations of each room with each step.

I love when I get to floors as a marker of almost being done. And as much as I enjoy the act of sweeping, I like to vacuum where possible; sweeping kicks up dust, particularly during the deeper cleans with more to fall from up high. If I sweep and am going to (steam) mop, I like to vacuum the pile. When sweeping, I like to sweep into a solid corner (as opposed to under the dishwasher or fridge or into the middle of the room) and from there, once close enough, create a pile near the corner. These are lessons I’ve learned from having applied what my mom taught me was the “right” way to clean floors. I’ve adapted them.

Finding your own rhythm and solutions to cleaning, having a routine or a system, is relaxing compared with wondering what to do next, which surface to clean, worrying about if something was cleaned already, using materials and solvents that don’t clean as well or don’t feel best for your health, getting lost in thought and finding yourself in a moment of having to try to remember.

We’ve come to cleaning the tools! Cleaning the materials and tools used in cleaning right away keeps them from stinking and readies them for next use. It’s a job completed, which feels so much better than a job left hanging. Cleaning them while you’re still dirty feels better than taking a post-cleaning shower and remembering you have a mess yet to tackle.

So. Thank you, Mom. Sometimes it was challenging (to give a crap) or boring or annoying to have to sit through lessons on how to clean. It was hard to feel so criticized. But you cleaned well, and I’m so appreciative to have been gifted these systems and skills that I can both re-contextualize for my life situations *and* transfer to other areas of my life.