Episode 9: Cleaning Up The Mess
Episode 9: Cleaning Up The Mess
Mimi Schmir, one of the writers from "Grey's Anatomy"
There's really only one thing left after you dance on a stripper pole, screw your ex-husband, almost forget your kids at school and then start lusting after the dad of one of your son's classmates. Clean up the mess.
The day after all that happened, I realized what I had to do. Lucky for me, it was "take your kids to work week" and Jeffrey decided (in a burst of post-coital guilt) to act like a father and show Mr. Handsome he really has a job. (The kids don't know what Jeffrey does, and when he has tried to explain what "producer" means they look at him like he's an alien from Mars. Which, truthfully, would be the coolest career ever.) Eventually, at a loss for something better, Mr. Handsome settled on this version of a job description for his father: "Does what his boss tells him to do and bosses other people around." The bossing around part, perversely accurate, especially when applied to our now definitely defunct sex life.
As he trotted off with his dad, I thought about handing Mr. Handsome my picket sign - in a show of solidarity and as a symbol of what his father has lost by losing me (added income, creativity, really hot bod.) I quickly thought better of it. I may be many things, one of which is a believer in standing up to corporate greed (and I find that Jeffrey the insatiable adulterer just about sums that category up), but I am not a user of my children. (Except when it comes to getting dates with Sexy Dads. Sexy Dad Dates are like, exempt from that sort of moral high ground.)
Instead, with Roo off at pre-school and Mr. Handsome at "work," I turn up Jonesy's Jukebox (music for the newly single and slightly wild at heart), open a bottle of Chardonnay, swipe some ruby red Chanel over my lips and whip out the Ajax. I look at it this way. This is my new beginning. Out with the old, in with the new, it is Happy New Year with some tonic for the hangover that is bound to ensue. But mostly, and especially, it is starting over. Who needs a pity party when you can clean up your house? Is there a better way of starting over than that?
In the spirit of full disclosure here — I am a pack rat. My past has a bad habit of feeling satiated, lighting a cigarette and falling asleep on my shoulders. Shoulders, incidentally, have a way of staying sexy long after the rest of you has gone south. Shoulders are an erogenous-zone when you are over 40.
Anyhoo, in the spirit of sexy shoulders and the great gal cleaners of the world (Cinderella comes to mind), I start dancing. I find this sort of activity oddly therapeutic, most especially when there is head banging involved. And I'm singing along with Oasis ("Lord, Don't Slow Me Down") and feeling like I am TAKING CHARGE OF THINGS. The boxes filled with papers — gone. The old, unopened bills — no more. The jury-duty summons — BON VOYAGE-EY! (Seriously, I am making a new commitment to cleanliness, legal ramifications notwithstanding.) And the song is loud ("When the lights go down you and me are gonna shoot it up,") which is only appropriate when you're cleansing and then I have an a-ha! moment. (I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "a-ha!" equals trouble. And you might be right.)
Coincidentally (and I think not), while I'm rooting around in my pit of a closet I find the sage that Annabelle gave me. Yeah, I know I told her she was full of crap (she insisted it would purify my life) and I wasn't in to that kind of hocus-pocus. But in the spirit of, well...the SPIRIT...I have started to believe. And I'm cleaning and dancing and in an (if I do say so myself) inspired moment of "Why the hell not?" I light that sucker on fire and start to CLEANSE MY HOME. Profoundly. Spiritually. Fundamentally. And I'm really in to this, you understand. Because I'm not just cleansing my house of old clothes (Jeez, did I ever wear shoulder pads? And did I ever say, "Jeez?!") I'm not just getting rid of thigh high boots (trampy) and VCR tapes (obsolete), pseudo-oxygen facials (pointless) and of course of Jeffrey (no need to say more) but, here's the kicker — I'm cleansing the house of me.
Make no mistake here. Not the parts of me that held my ground and told Jeffrey to go the fuck away. Not the me who grooves on Oasis and Cocoa Pebbles for dinner and remembers what it was like to be a teenager with my friends on the Cape slathering Sun In on her hair. Not the me that spawned a couple of humans, not the me who in a sugar-infused stupor invented the three armed girl, and not the me that still believes, despite what life has thrown my way that there is a FUTURE out there. (And if that future involves sex with hot dads, well - Yay.)
I'm just neatly disposing of all the other stuff.
So I inhale that sage like it is the most expensive perfume in the world. And I'm flailing my arms around (there's something liberating about dancing in the living room in your underwear — did I mention that part?) and suddenly — CRAP. Suddenly I smell — SHIT — suddenly I realize something is burning.
It's the sage, of course. I didn't put it in the proper sage-y pot, or whatever that stone thing was that Annabelle gave me to burn it in, I just put it (okay, I'm an idiot), I kind of just put it on a plate on a side table right near a CURTAIN, and that's what going on and I'm running around, looking for the curtain in question when suddenly, I remember. I don't have curtains. Jeffrey's allergic. To curtains and rugs and cats and — believe me, the list is endless. Seriously, don't get me started on the allergy thing. No, it isn't a curtain that is burning. It is me. MY HAIR IS ON FIRE. And okay, I'm all for new beginnings, and starting over and purification but I HAVE NO INTENTION OF STARTING MY NEW LIFE BALD.
So I make a mad dash for the kitchen, where, even in this moment of insanity I believe I can put my head under the faucet when all of a sudden, I feel...my hair dripping. Yes, there is most definitely water in my eyes. Why am I wet? Because oddly, someone has dumped a bucket of water on my head. And I turn around, and there is Raoul, my handyman, staring at me curiously, with an empty Pepsi bottle in his hand. Which is when I feel my hair. Smelling sweet and feeling sticky. And that's when it all comes together.
"Hello, Esme," says Raoul. "Hello, Raoul." I sigh. This day isn't going exactly as I planned. I'm starting to see a pattern here. Raoul scratches his head. "What are you doing?" "Well, Raoul," I shift from one squishy foot to the other. "I'm cleaning my house."
Raoul cocks his head to one side, a little puzzled. "It does look...messy" "Yes," I nod vigorously. "Very messy." I'm kind of hoping he'll leave it at that, but this is Raoul we're talking about. He sticks his nose in the air. "So what's that smell?" I sniff. "Uh...my hair? It was burning. But I guess you know that. Because of the Pepsi shower and all. " Raoul shakes his head. "That's not burning hair." He's a handyman. He knows these things. And I should add, there are men in this world who can actually be "handy." Handy with tools. Handy fixing things. Of course, not Jeffrey. Jeffrey is only good at yelling at people and getting impossible dinner reservations.
"Esme," he says, curiously. "You weren't...cooking, were you? Because I'm pretty sure I smell sage." And he starts to chuckle. Because Raoul knows me well enough to know that I don't cook. "You were cooking," he's kind of choke laughing now. "You're trying to impress some new guy, you lunatic. That's what's going on here."
And I put my hands on my hips, which granted, doesn't give me much more authority in this situation. Because he thinks he knows me so well. (Which he may, but I can't give him that satisfaction.) And I tell him what I'm really doing. That I'm cleansing. That I'm cleaning. That I'm STARTING OVER. And I guess he understands that. Because even though he's always late (often as much as a week, which is why he is here at this very moment, he was actually supposed to be working SIX DAYS AGO) Raoul is a good guy. And he's a handyman. And handymen fix things. Things that are broken. And he understands that in the interest of starting over and cleaning up and purification and just plain common sense — well, he understands that in this moment, though things may look even messier than before, though I may have burned off a big chunk of my own hair, though my boxes are still half put away and my parrot (his namesake) is clamoring for food and Petunia the pig is rooting around in the garden and the music is still blasting — though all of these things are going on, Raoul understands one important thing. He understands what I have come to understand — I am fixing my broken life.
And because he understands (I believe this now), Raoul, my handyman, beckons me to the kitchen table, puts on a pot of tea and hands me a robe. Then, without saying anything else, he gets his namesake some bird food, lets the pig into the house and good guy that he is, without a hint of condescension, or judgment or possibly deserved commentary...without any of that, Raoul (by the way, this is not the first time he's called me a lunatic) starts helping me clean.
To get up to speed on Esme's musings and "Hot Flashes," check out "In the Beginning".
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