Saturday we took all the furniture off the screened porch to be cleaned. I had someone coming to powerwash and seal the driveway and back concrete deck, so we did the concrete floor on the screen porch as well. Besides it was time (well past actually) that I gave everything a good cleaning.
My first plan was to move everything onto the lawn and spray it down with the hose. But the side yards are small, and the neighbors were having a sixth birthday party for their grandson. Although the children probably wouldn't have minded getting wet, they needed room to play. The furniture went into the garage and sat...and sat...and I fretted...and fretted...and fretted some more about when I would get it done.
The floor dried. Moisés was allowed back outside and decided he did not like the smell and feel of the new floor. Poor thing, so spoiled; he missed his carpet.
But I hadn't washed the furniture yet.
And so last night I did. I washed it in the garage the old fashioned way by hand. And it really didn't take that much longer than it would have out in the yard with the hose. More importantly the entire process was much more satisfying. As I washed and rinsed and dried each piece I had to be still, let my mind stop fretting and just relax, let it pay attention to the details. It is not that my outdoor furniture is precious in any monetary sense; it isn't. But as I washed each piece I realized how precious it is to me. I like the way it looks. It is comfortable. I have many happy memories of sitting on the porch reading, knitting, talking to family.
And it occurred to me that there is more to this ongoing process of simplification than I had previously realized. I understand that we have allowed the business of life to clutter our brains, and that there is far more that we think is "necessary" than is actually needed. But somehow I had let it slip from my mind that the process of caring for those things we have and need and love is also a part of the simplification of the mind and of life in general. If caring for what we have weighs us down, we have too much. And the process of caring for something is also a part and parcel of the way we make it our own. If we don't care, if we don't take care, we aren't really living our lives to the fullest. If we don't care, the outer trappings of our life have become a yoke and a burden.
My outdoor furniture is not handmade. It came out of a factory in China. But does that mean that now that I own it and use it I should care for it any less than the hand-carved table I inherited from my grandmother? I suspect not. Every thing is precious just as every moment is precious. Sometimes we are so busy playing "master of the universe" that we forget just to be, we forget to be thankful for who we are and what we have.
