shiny and new

This weekend we moved furniture around. Over the past months 'new' furniture has appeared or migrated into other rooms. Things have been screwed into walls, and furnishings have taken on new roles in new spaces. In all this, new spaces are created from old furnishings. Always, in the days following re-arrangements, there is a feeling of newness and pride. We look around us and say "This works. I want to inhabit this space." This is an ongoing project which threads itself back through my (and our) previous homes, all the way to childhood. It was once my job to dust and polish lounge room ornaments. I felt accomplished and proud when, with my own hands, I made things appear shiny.

This weekend closes with me in the bath, reading Bachelard on 'home as universe'. It's cold outside, but I'm doubly protected by these walls and this bath water. Bachelard quotes Rilke, who speaks on the joys of dusting:

I was, as I said, magnificently alone... when suddenly I was seized by my old passion. I should say that this was undoubtedly my greatest childhood passion, as well as my first contact with music, since our little piano fell under my jurisdiction as duster. It was, in fact, one of the few objects that lent itself willingly to this operation and gave no sign of boredom. On the contrary, under my zealous dustcloth, it suddenly started to purr mechanically... and its fine, deep black surface became more and more beautiful. When you've been through this there's little you don't know! I was quite proud, if only of my indispensable costume, which consisted of a big apron and little washable suede gloves to protect one's dainty hands. Politeness tinged with mischief was my reaction to the friendliness of these objects, which seemed happy to be so well treated, so meticulously renovated.

Bachelard says: "there is the striking line with which it opens: 'I was magnificently alone!' Alone, as we are at the origin of all real action that we are not 'obliged' to perform."

I'm left thinking about the satisfaction of clean surfaces, freshly re-arranged rooms, the folding of cleaned clothes. These make spaces immense, and in the shiny surfaces within my homes, I project my wishes for a life in order.

For Rilke, cleaning was not an obligation, and it was only when his maid was away that he took to polishing his desk (and remembering his childhood passion). But I assume that many of us feel obliged to clean and keep an order within the home. My sometimes incessant ordering/tidying feels necessary, I need it so as to keep going, to give a pseudo-foundation to the mess of my days.

Perhaps the only space in which I can be 'magnificently alone' is in writing.