I often have a hard time 'getting it up" for housework. As a survivor of domestic abuse, I am prone to inertia. For so many years (eleven actually) I could never get anything right, or my efforts were completely overlooked. It became more and more difficult to make any sort of decision for myself because any action I took was always the wrong action.
Now I am the head of my household. I have three children ages 11,4 and 3. Like myself they have been trained to believe that they are incapable of accomplishing anything. Getting their assistance in housekeeping takes more time than the actual housekeeping. Those of you who live in somewhat less chaotic households would say that this is normal for most children. I concede, but I cannot discount that my children have also endured the effects of domestic violence.
For whatever reason, perhaps divine intervention, I awoke determined to make some headway in cleaning, organizing and simplifying our home. I have benefited in the past by following the Flylady's guidance in housekeeping, so I began employing my timer today. Setting my kitchen timer for 15 minutes I began in the kitchen, clearing some of the counter space and wiping it down. I threw away unneeded items in my path and bagged up the recycling. When my 15 minutes in the kitchen were up, I went down to the laundry room and started a load of laundry and then setting my timer again, I moved on to the dining room.
The dining room table was covered with clean laundry. Quickly, I folded up the linens and placed them in the linen closet making a mental note that I would have to take a turn in there, treating it like a room in my home.
I went back to the laundry room and set my timer again. I cleared a space I had been eying for a couple of weeks to make room for the unused cabinet that had been sitting in a dark corner. As I was wiping it out, a thought occurred to me.
Since I was a teenager, I have fantasized about living in Europe. At first I desired to acquire an apartment in Venice, which is my mother's native city. I have relatives there and I spent many summers living in the most serene city. Later on I dreamed of a little stone cottage in the Maritime Alps in the south of France. Envisioning a lovely little Roman ruin renovated for modern living, about an hour's walk from the nearest village and of course no roads.
With the advent of social networking, I made two friends who live in Cesky Krumlov, a historic, medieval town in the Czech Republic. This is that artsy and wonderful place formerly known as Bohemia. Oh how the thought of living among artists, poets, writers and cabaret performers appeals to me.
So I'm wiping down this cabinet, right? And it occurs to me. I can expatriate right here in my Penn Hills home. I can pretend (and I do that very well btw) that by some stroke of good luck, I have inherited this lovely, character filled, fakey, craftsman type cottage on nearly a half acre in Penn Hills Krumlov, a little known area of Bohemia located on the outskirts of Pittsburgh.
The house is recently vacated by a messy family who fled a psychologically and emotionally violent civil war in the small country formerly known as Longolia. They hoarded many useful and some not so useful things. I can go through their stuff and keep what is lovely, useful and needed and give away, recycle or throw away the rest. I don't have to hold on to anything just because some one gave it to the original owners as they are long gone.
The new citizens, my family, are claiming this territory for their own. Here we will enjoy the virtues of simple living, redefine our family and create a welcoming sanctuary for the artists, poets, writers and cabaret performers that we are. I'm not sure what we'll name our new country, perhaps the Republic of Little Bohemia. I am open to suggestion. Who knows? Perhaps I could offer a getaway weekend in my quaint little country to the reader who suggests the perfect name.
