On Dust Work & Clean Versions

(An update: I talk “dust work” versus my new chapbook project Dust Work, and how to tidy up a trail.)

Since mid-December, I’ve been working on a hybrid-narrative writing project called Dust Work in the Valley of Dry Bones. 

The name, of course, is rather spooky. Just the way I like things – but really, I’ve used the term “dust work” for several years now, privately, to designate my writing practice without putting too much pressure on myself. 

And I’d be lying if I spun a clean origin for the term. The two main points I can remember are: first, Lent – which, notoriously, begins with Ash Wednesday: ashes to ashes, dust to dust – and, second, a book I read during high school called The Secret Life Of Dust (Hannah Holmes), which examines dust as a necessity for creating environments for life.

Now put the two together. 

The idea that emerges for me is that this untidy desert of a “right here, right now” in which I continually find myself is…actually a pretty good place to do whatever it is I’m doing. That is, the dust – the untidiness – is crucial to the business. 

So let me circle back to what that is:

In Dust Work in the Valley of Dry Bones, I examine “cleaning” as an answer to the question: “how to live?” 

From my project summary:

“Cleaning is often taken for granted. Yet precisely because cleaning is meant to disappear, it becomes a powerful force linking memory and erasure, care and control, kinship and identity. 

From a prophet who talks too much, to a trash can where waste is hand-placed for perfect tidiness, the chapbook asks what a life leaves in its wake – and what gets tidied to preserve the “clean version” of events.”

The clean version? How on earth do we get to that? 

There are already very useful books that address practical aspects of this question. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (Marie Kondo), and The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning (Margareta Magnusson) (a surprisingly cheerful read) are two of my non-ironic favorites. 

And then there are the…less straightforward approaches. 

That is, there is already a rich body of artistic and intellectual work built around the idea of “maintenance work.” 

The arts and writing of Mierle Laderman Ukeles; Selma James; and Lenka Clayton; are particularly representative of work interrogating the who/what/why of domestic routines. 

And when I lift the dust cover off these pieces of intellectual framing, the real story: these ideas resonate because they are filtered through my own vivid experience of life with a…full-time, stay-at-home mother. 

One whose frustrations with housework were rooted in knowledge of the same feminist movement that bolstered the above-mentioned artists and activists; and whose own artistic mindset and vision of her space engendered what can best be described as a particularly rigorous methodology of cleaning-as-continual-practice. 

Of course, regarding my own “maintenance work:” I’ve spent years living as an adult and trying/failing/trying to tidy my life into order. I’ve cleaned up after myself and after roommates; I’ve also tried methods ranging from “ignore it” to “put it in a box.” I’m currently trying a hybrid approach called “ignore it but do just enough laundry/dishes to sort of count.” 

And yet – this process of writing about cleaning has been very important to me: not as a penance or manifesto or “how-to,” but as a way to finally, realistically acknowledge to myself that – there isn’t really a way to live and be clean at the same time. 

It isn’t a moral judgement. That is: as long as I am part of a system, I’ll leave a trail. I’ll leave carbon dioxide and skin cells and hair. I’ll shake lint off my clothes and pick up cat hair when I sit down. I’ll drop tissues, scuff walls and doors, lose my favorite hoodie somewhere in Texas – learn all the stains on the walls at both my places of work; put a piece of tape on the lifting desk laminate at one of them. And throw away empty sardine tins at the other, regularly and surreptitiously. All of these things will leave trails.

No amount of maintenance work will completely erase them. No amount of talking about maintenance work will, either. 

But if “cleaning” is one answer to the question of “how to live,” it is important to acknowledge a property of cleaning that is immediately obvious to anyone who’s done a lot of it. That is: it’s cyclical. Recursive. Things are clean, and then the dust settles. And then – you clean. Sometimes you clean for yourself, sometimes you clean for others and hope someone likewise picks up the slack for you (or at least has poor eyesight for dust) – but the process itself will never cease. As long as you’re in relation with life, you’re in some sort of relation with the business of picking/not picking up after yourself. 

So: dust work. The business of dust settling, new dust rising: the space for life to emerge. 

You see what a difference a clean version can make?

Advent, Day 24: Single Leaf

(Day 24 of this year’s Advent series. Yesterday’s piece was about vigils; today we consider arrival.)

Single Leaf

I really love the sound –
A single leaf against the ground.
It means I’m finally
Listening.

My friends –

Here we are. 

If you have never heard the sound made by a solitary leaf, then I hope your day will hold that. 

As I hope your day will hold countless seconds of awe and uncertainty and clarity, side-by-side, each to their moments of attention, each enriched by and enriching all the rest. 

May you step out in peace.

Advent, Day 23: You Who Hold Vigil

(Day 23 of this year’s Advent series. Yesterday’s piece was about beasts; today we consider vigils.)

You Who Hold Vigil

Do not close too soon
This time between, 
You who hold vigil;
You who hold
This night in your lap,
Who rock with the muscles
Of movement and memory, 
Sing with the voice of no words,
Bear what was inside, out;
Bear the form
Of the night who bore you
Long ago.

Well, my friends. 

It turns out I really didn’t know what I was wandering towards this Advent. The question marks have flown by at breakneck speed, life pouring in through their contrails. 

Vigils that last for any period of time are never an act of single attention. 

In my case, seconds of reflection and awe have occurred within – everything else. There’s been work and not-work and cleaning, a birthday and a birthday party; I remembered my mother, and tried to remember the living. I definitely forgot some things, like going to the gym; worked on putting together chapbook collections; continued reading the same books I’ve been working on since August; started a poetry manuscript on cleaning; and signed myself up to make turkey, black beans, and roasted squash to share with others. 

The housework definitely slid. I did clean out the fridge. To make room for the turkey.

One of the more vigil-like aspects was glimpsing the person I was three years ago, when I wrote this collection of Advent poems to send off to my parents. I was able to edit a few of these poems to reflect what I felt was most honest, now – but was unable to share then. The main things have stayed remarkably consistent, however. Themes of uncertainty, honesty, silence, beasts, and miracles – and the many ways of paying attention to and through these. 

All of these themes are still question marks for me. They mark spots where my brain keeps catching on the world, and refusing to accept a single tidy insight.

And my scattered attention stays scattered. Fragmentation is a motif because I have a hard time focusing on – seeing things – in any other way. 

Today I’m sitting down to write most of my Christmas cards. Which have apparently just become New Year’s cards. At this rate a few of them might go out in time for Lent too. (You would not be wrong in suspecting there’s more than one reason why I like to link the two seasons.) The year moves forward. 

Even if my attention wants to linger in the vigil-state of Advent, that’s not possible. Maybe I’ll be back next year. In the meantime, the night of December 24th marks the moment when we are through this bi-stable door, stepping out of Rubin’s vase into the church season of Christmas and Epiphany. Things become a bit more scripted again, and I tend to wander off to look at squirrels and other unknown beasts. 

But I try to bring a few things along. Even though that’s not really possible. I try to remember a few bars of song, the lullabies of this time, the gentle rocking of a cradle – vexing (thank you, Yeats) or otherwise. 

I try to remember the night that bore me long ago. One half of a question mark. One half of an answer. One half of a map between these wandering lines of black and white on either side.

Remembering and looking forward at the same time – through all the fragmentation – that’s a pretty good definition of vigil, and a pretty good path beyond this question mark’s rocking curve.

Advent, Day 22: You May Slouch

(Day 22 of this year’s Advent series. Yesterday’s piece was about honesty; today we consider crossroads.)

You May Slouch

You may slouch
Towards Bethlehem –
Or take up your mat and walk;
Run, praising, or run
The other way
Following Jonah. 

Whichever, however way –
You will arrive:
It is a small town,
But a crossroads
No path is spared.

– With special appreciation of 
William Butler Yeats’s The Second Coming –

Crossroads are (notoriously) places where something happens: something is offered, something is received, something or someone is refused or gained. They are sites of interchange, in both the literal and metaphorical sense. 

Yeats wrote “The Second Coming” in 1919, as a reflection of the dawning post-WWI era. The images it portrays are generally understood to be terrifying, although this has never stopped me from loving the poem to pieces and sneaking quotes into cards for every possible occasion (graduation to Christmas to “get well”). It’s motivational. Or “awe-inspiring.” Something like that, anyway. My point is – Yeats was writing after World War I, he knew damn well what kind of rough beast might be on Europe’s horizon. And he still framed it as a question: “…what rough beast…” – ?

Which means it could be something amazing. Unlikely, yes. But it could be. And a sizable portion of hope is looking towards that unknown rough beast – 

And holding out a dog treat. Just in case. 

Advent, Day 21: I’ll Wrestle Your Stranger

(Day 21 of this year’s Advent series. Yesterday’s piece was about tranquility; today we consider honesty.)

I’ll Wrestle Your Stranger

I.

I’ll wrestle Your Stranger,
If that is my part.

Yet I would rather talk
Heart-to-heart,
Or as with silence
Give up all defense –

II.

Did Jacob learn 
A better way to fight, 
That night?
Lacking words
He used so well in greed –

All tongues, asleep
He left under a stone;

Now, alone,
Stripped from self and home,
He learned the love of
Honesty –
By Your rough embrace.

So, about honesty: 

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

I think of honesty not as a value but as a practice. It is a quality I am most aware of when writing; the sense that some part of a sentence or story has taken the easy way out. That’s my sign to think again. 

It is fine if something is told “slant,” in Dickinson’s inimitable phrase. It is not fine if it is told lazily. 

And to be clear: laziness, in the sense of apathy, can be a virtue (I promise you my argument on that one of these days). But laziness in the sense of triteness ranks high up on my personal list of moral failings to guard against. It is a flaw that trips twice: first, by dulling one’s own sense of persistence and care, and second, by dulling others’ sense of urgency toward existence.

…“Urgency toward existence”? Apparently so. 

Let’s be precise. The body is the primary tool with which to experience the world. And only one person will ever experience the world from within your body. 

Only one person can map your uncertainty from the inside. 

Only one person knows the shape of your pain well enough to translate it into empathy.

So: the practice of honesty is one way to pay attention to…all of that.

And honestly – 

Figuring out how to tell truth so it sounds more fun than the proverbial one that got away: it’s not a bad way to spend an evening, stone pillow and all.

Advent, Day 20: When Sinks The Silence

(Day 20 of this year’s Advent series. Yesterday’s piece was about side quests; today we consider tranquility.)

When Sinks the Silence

When sinks the silence
Into my soul –
So much is lost:
The words submerged
That stone-like build
A weeping well,
Where yesterdays swim
And feed on crumbs’
Retelling.

When soothed all sound,
Made to lie down
In pastures:
Passed beyond,
Or peace be upon
The cowbell clink,
Trampled rush
Towards greener seed – 

Where angels tread
By muffled way,
No harm to say
Nor see –

Then what is lost, 
Let lost remain
Lest gaining back
My heart betrays
This soft tranquility.   

Tranquility is a deeply impermanent state. I would be a fool to talk over a poem built on setting aside the need to explain or expand. May you, likewise, see what you can set aside today – even for a moment.  

Advent, Day 19: A Million Mornings Long

(Day 19 of this year’s Advent series. Yesterday’s piece was about note taking; today we consider side quests.)

A Million Mornings Long

A million mornings long,
By way of night – 
A million sunsets, then
Some balance bright
And rich in time.

A million waits the journey,
A million steps –
On ways not circled round
By maplines kept.
Still, on – 

Though moving not.
Only sun or star,
Face of moon or face
Of stranger; these ones are

The migrant ones

Who gift our timewards press
With side paths rich.

There’s a picture online of a cat sitting upright on the sidewalk. The cat is illuminated by a perfectly golden shaft of sunlight. 

The caption: “If gaming has taught me anything, I know a side quest when I see one.” 

Of course, side quests usually aren’t lit up like a burning bush. And the notorious trade-off of the side quest is time and attention from one’s main goal. But sometimes the benefits are worth it. 

Sometimes, just knowing there are other routes enriches the main route.

Advent, Day 18: The Miracle Collector

(Day 18 of this year’s Advent series. Yesterday’s piece was about shoulder pads; today we consider note-taking.)

The Miracle Collector

The miracle collector
Comes around –
Most every morning,
For what others haven’t found
In busy streets.

Leave out the miracles
You passed by
And on your doorstep
You may find
A chance: tomorrow’s eye
To fill your time with byways,
If you try. 

I spend a portion of each day walking. 

And I don’t just walk; I take notes. 

Every once in a while, I even look at these notes after the fact. 

Here is a brief sample of things that were found “noteworthy,” covering a span of about 12 months, and with only light editing for clarity and spelling. You may draw your own conclusions. 

(Pleasant Valley Road)

Huge old white/cream rose bush now in bloom, overflowing the yard
Of the house that was in flames not three weeks back.

Gold leaves and scattered clothes and at least three different types of smoke

Silver sky through I-beam bones

Bloodlust, in block letter red
Paint, on sheetrock
Written

(Oltorf Street)

Section 8 apartments on one of the hills that shapes water towards the Colorado River, the lot used to be a mesquite wood. From its steps I still see:
Sunrise flung wide, or the high gold silence of early morning.

Incense down the hill, and the smell of Jasmine rice cooking

Ant mounds of hot red grit amid yellow soil

Clear flowing water down a concrete hill

Bullet casings and needles half-covered in mud, fallen gold leaves and children playing 

Mad koolaid scent of mountain laurel

Green and pink scarves to meet the children’s bus

(Riverside Drive)

A prayer strung on a misplaced knife,
Keychain-like

By the time the sunflowers came round the buildings were all gone

A bike in urban waters –
Did they think 
The turtles 
Needed Transit?

Rose-covered sheet and sharps, looking down over the bridge into a cart

A pair of children’s shoes on a bridge ledge 

Old water, rusted murky twang of steeping metal

Surprise fish in floodwaters, look down through air to see the stir

Desire paths to smooth the surveyed corners

Dragonfly crash-landing in sudden rains, clinging to the shirt under my umbrella (heavy)

(Govalle Avenue)

Smell of vanilla pipe, strong and broad, at the street crossing – no one in sight

Rubbered scent of lilies

Lizard chasing a cockroach across limestone at the bus stop, who catches who

White rose bush, early morning, hidden under dead branches

While spring pours around

Wardrobe (mirrored doors) reflecting morning

A lady who sweeps dust in front of her house every morning
What does she do when it rains

Pecan and snail shells, wild grape vines, terrible crunch of which?

Empty lot framed in grape arbors

Twisted grape arbors holding up an empty-windowed house

I can’t exactly call myself a “miracle collector,” since I pass many more things by without noticing. But I can leave these things out on the doorstep, as an offering to tomorrow’s eyes.

Advent, Day 17: Other Clothes

(Day 17 of this year’s Advent series. Yesterday’s piece was about lightning rods; today we consider shoulder pads.)

Other Clothes

What other clothes
Could I wear?
What other cloth,
What other ties,
What other face to bind
Across my easy ways;
What other shape to cut,
Or tears to mend,
Or hemlines tread.
Whoever, however, I know not:
But by Your mercy
Show me how to wear
Such as You lay out
For me.

I have a thing for 1980s sweaters and jackets. House rules: the more garishly colored the better, and the cheaper off of eBay, the best. 

The only downside I have ever found to these pinnacles of creation is the matter of shoulder pads. 

A few snips are an easy fix. No problem, I thought. 

But the last few months I’ve had bad luck. I received one, and then another, masterpiece – in which the shoulder pads were treacherously sewn into the lining. 

In one case, a frenzy of seam-ripping and strategic re-sewing (after disposing of the shoulder pad remains) seemed to do the trick, at least enough to wear at Halloween.

In the second case, a friend with actual fashion curatorial chops convinced me to seek professional help…probably. I have yet to make the phone call, and I still eyeball from jacket to scissors thoughtfully whenever I look in the closet.

The point is, even after changes there’s no guarantee of perfection. One will either end up closer to or farther away from the vision one had to begin with. 

Given that gamble, I suppose it’s valid to ask: why even begin? I have yet to figure out a better reason than “it might be super cool.” Then again, I wasn’t really consulted about the beginning of all this. There wasn’t an opt-in or a bid, I didn’t get to choose shipping, and I certainly didn’t get to choose whether I wanted shoulder pads. Among other things. (Did any decade have the option of “shoulder pads, but slightly smaller”?) 

And at the end of the day – or beginning, rather – the options are: put it on, or pass. And if I pass, I still have to find something to wear.  

That is definitely some sort of model of – let’s call it, self-acceptance. Seam-eyeballing and all. 

And in the meantime, I’m watching Golden Girls reruns for style notes.

Advent, Day 16: Advent-Struck

(Day 16 of this year’s Advent series. Yesterday’s piece was about eye games; today we consider lighting rods.)

Advent-Struck

Star and flower, wood and wave
Smoke of peat or grassland
Cracked with flame –
Each of these, carbon rare, 
Fruit that bears your Tree
And bound by name –

By holy lightning framed,
Struck by an Advent:

If they know change, 
How much more transformed we?
Changes grave,
Towards and past,
Voices split by sky
Or sky-spilt harmony:
This world moved
Each second of
Eternity.

Five days a week, I walk to and from work. My jobs are on two different routes, but the distance to each is roughly the same. 

This gives me plenty of time to take in the world – sort of.  

You see, when I walk I’m constantly in motion. I have yet to find a time that is “too early” to leave, shall we say. 

And yet sometimes the glimpse of something – light or leaves, a dead frog, a playing card face up on the sidewalk – or a single oblong cloud hitting the moon; will bring a split-second of stillness so intense that it fractures the rest of my day. 

But I can never stay. The rules of my morning commute are that I have to keep walking. 

Have you ever tried to walk and pay attention… at the same time?

(It’s definitely cheating if you think you can just pay attention to walking. I’m sure people would already do that if it worked.) 

Some things are too important not to see. Especially when they’re the things that no one sees. 

Dead frogs and cats and torn-up book pages and perfect pieces of glass, for example. Cicada shells, bird wings, water gushing up from the road, a hole in the sidewalk.

(Alright: those last two I did in fact call about. Someone else did need to see them.) 

Over and through all of this, it seems the act of watching, of having been struck by those split seconds of weird or gorgeous or grotesque, is incredibly important. Not “an answer”, but a part of something: an act of witness. Or perhaps – a volunteer, temporary lightning rod: to ground a life or death or displacement. 

Advent crystallizes the act of paying attention, as question marks are wont to do.

And by paying attention, the one thing that becomes clear is that it is never enough. Never enough to ground the moment. And never enough attention for what that split-second is worth.