Potentiality, if it is to be exercised, has to be externalized, and so passes out of one's control.
Pressure washing the house has been strangely affirming. We've had the tools to do it for a long time, but I simply assumed that, like most of the other maintenance we've needed done through the years, it would remain unattempted, nevermind unfinished. At first the excuse was how scary it was to use an extension cord for something with such a high power draw on our ancient wiring, how scary to have an electrical device that also processed and moved water, how scary the tag on the cord that warned of lead and carcinogens and recommended hand washing after use, then the heat outside, then the chill, then sun or rain. In the end it is a simple operation, and perhaps the most frustrating thing about it has nothing to do with the pressure washer itself, but rather the tangle of hoses that results from carrying it and the heavy garden hose from one side of the house to the other in between sessions.
I felt certain I would need help-- that I'd be too short to reach the fascia-- but I don't and it is a wonderful solitary activity with immediately appreciable results. Even without detergent the swath of water cuts through the grime on the house like an eraser. Beneath the accumulated black slime on the deck there is warm-toned wood clean as a chlorinated pool; only a few nails need to be hammered back down before I'd happily tread it barefoot. The tiny droplets of water on the window screens shine like gems, blue and red and orange and gold, in the sunlight. I stop to watch butterflies vie for prime position on the zinnias, see their tiny proboscises search for nectar. Viola seedlings are appearing in the dry pots on the steps by the house. In the yard honeybees-- which I haven't seen in such numbers for years-- flit from weed to yellow weed. There are dragonflies. I begin to see the small ways in which I might care for this place, even if I cannot stay here forever. I begin to see that I am a grown woman, capable of caring for things.
When I turn down the pressure and blast the residual dirt from the deck I can suddenly smell the fish Marco would clean and gut here, long ago, before preparing them for us to eat. That happiness is long past and cannot be retrieved, but I think there may be others yet to savor.
I felt certain I would need help-- that I'd be too short to reach the fascia-- but I don't and it is a wonderful solitary activity with immediately appreciable results. Even without detergent the swath of water cuts through the grime on the house like an eraser. Beneath the accumulated black slime on the deck there is warm-toned wood clean as a chlorinated pool; only a few nails need to be hammered back down before I'd happily tread it barefoot. The tiny droplets of water on the window screens shine like gems, blue and red and orange and gold, in the sunlight. I stop to watch butterflies vie for prime position on the zinnias, see their tiny proboscises search for nectar. Viola seedlings are appearing in the dry pots on the steps by the house. In the yard honeybees-- which I haven't seen in such numbers for years-- flit from weed to yellow weed. There are dragonflies. I begin to see the small ways in which I might care for this place, even if I cannot stay here forever. I begin to see that I am a grown woman, capable of caring for things.
When I turn down the pressure and blast the residual dirt from the deck I can suddenly smell the fish Marco would clean and gut here, long ago, before preparing them for us to eat. That happiness is long past and cannot be retrieved, but I think there may be others yet to savor.