Cathartic cleaning up

After replying to a comment on my last post, I browsed though my favourite blogs and read this. After that, I could never bring myself to write. Or do anything, really. Was it a sense of loss, a time of grieving, a clutching my own daughter closer to me? Perhaps a combination of the three.

And then this morning, Kalpana (the maid) didn't come in and I did the dishes. After ages actually. On her weekly off days, I endeavour to cook as little as possible, simply to avoid doing the household chores. That's how lazy I am. But we had company this weekend and she's not in today as well, so I did the dishes this morning. About two sink-loads of them.

There's something so cathartic about cleaning up something visibly messy, I thought. And then I remembered that the last time I voiced the same thought in exactly the same words was some 4 years ago, exactly two days before my wedding.

Ammachi had returned to Chennai for good; Ken had gone with her; I was maidless for a month' and I was potentially leaving the house post-wedding. I took the day off to attend Ken's PTA meeting and for sundry wedding-related activities. Singin' in the Rain was on the DVD, and I looked around and decided to clear up. After all, the family was due back the next morning for the wedding.

The 'little clearing-up' soon took on monstrous proportions as I moved all the furniture and finished up my bottles of Harpic, Lizol, Surf, and Dettol with Good morning on my lips.. I relinquished the modern mop in favour of the traditional get-down-on-the-knees and scrub-with-soapy-water brand of cleaning.

A colleague called to find out how 'the day off' was going and I said in voice brimming with enthusiasm, “Fabulously. I am cleaning house!”

“And that's making you so happy because....”

“Because there's something so cathartic about cleaning up something visibly messy.”

“Yeah right!”

She hung up, obviously convinced that wedding jitters had addled my brain. I had just got back to the floor when the phone rang again. I ignored it. It rang itself out and then began again. I ignored it. Like Mrs Macbeth's hand, there was a patch on the floor that refused to respond to traditional cleaning methods and then the phone rang again. And again.

“Who's that persistant @#$!” I thought and then my catastrophizing self took over. “Ken's hurt. Oh my God! An accident. Oh God. He fell off the terrace! Dear Lord! He'd dead!” I jumped up and ran to grab the phone. And I slipped and fell just as I reached out for it. I tried to break the fall with my hand. Sadly the wrist bone is not really designed to support some 60 odd kilos. It broke. My right wrist. Two days before my wedding, I'd broken my wrist.

I had enough experiences in fractures to know that it was broken. Blameless and Clueless were not in town. I called Reckless's place. Her family was leaving town by the afternoon train and she was not at home. Her mother heard me out and came over in some 15 minutes flat. We drove down to the hospital, got the X-ray done, confirmed the fracture and got a cast. “You can't use this hand for a couple of months,” the doc declared.

“She's getting married day after tomorrow,” said Reckless's Mom dispiritedly.

“Be good practice for the groom to do the chores right from the beginning of the marriage,” he returned.

The mate was getting a haircut when I called. He thought I was pulling his leg. Until he met me at the airport the next evening. It was just an indication of how terribly interesting his life was about to become over the next few years. 

I smiled at the memory. This time around, I managed to finish the dishes without breaking anything. Not even a cup.

P.S: Oh, and by the way, that persistent caller.....  That was just Ken's school reminding me to attend the PTA. Kevin was alive and well.