The cleaning lady

I had a cleaning lady a few years ago when I was in graduate school and working full time -- I had simply run out of time to do all of the things I needed to do. For $50 (she was inexpensive and my house was small) it seemed like a bargain to have someone come and scrub the floors and chase my dust bunnies. Also our cleaning lady was a friend and the wife of a church elder. For $50 she cleaned: for free she prayed and blessed while she did it.

On the flip side, I have been someone else's cleaning lady -- although mostly just empty rental property and the occasional helping hand for a friend. Cleaning houses is very hard and surprisingly intimate. There's no way you can scrub someone's kitchens and bathrooms and bedrooms and not know them in a very personal way. You learn their habits, their weaknesses, their likes and dislikes, the books they read, the foods they eat. You see but you try not to. It's like overhearing a confession or reading a diary. Your cleaning lady knows you in ways you probably don't want to think about, believe me.

One pretty fall day I spent a significant portion of my morning on my hands and knees scrubbing floors. It took a long time and it involved some not insignificant physical pain, as my softy office knees aren't used to that sort of business. After finishing, I stood up, bloody-knuckled, flushed and sweaty, pfff-ed the stray hair off my face and bragged to my mother (who is a cleaning lady full time and then some and had been cleaning circles around me all morning) about how beautiful it was. She said, "Yes, I do that every week. It's the only way to get a really clean floor." Well, the idea of my 59 year old rheumatoid arthritic mother on her hands and knees scrubbing floors really popped my bubble. I hated to think about her doing that and at the same time I realized that I really hadn't done anything special myself.

Don't misunderstand me. I don't pity her... but I really respect her. Mom is usually happy cleaning and has augmented her earnings or made her living for 40 years by straightening up someone's mess. I understand why she likes it-- I do too. I like the pop of a fresh sheet as I make the bed, the faint smell of bleach on my hands. I like the order and comfort of a clean room. It doesn't have to be antiseptically clean, just ordinary clean and clutter free. If I've done something really big like a basement or garage I'll sometimes go in to that room again and again just to enjoy the difference between before and after. In my own house I light scented candles in each room as I finish it... I don't know why, other than it's just part of my ritual.

There is one difference between me and a real cleaning lady though. I choose to do it -- I don't need to pay my bills this way. If I had to do it day in and day out to put food on the table I'm sure I would feel differently. I never see a cleaning person without thinking of my mother and my own reddened knees and raw hands from scrubbing floors. To this day, I always smile and say hello to the office cleaning people, the hotel cleaning staff, the people spraying sanitizer in the public restrooms and scooping paper off the tables in the food court. They work hard and they keep many secrets. They clean up my mess and then they go home to do it all over in their own homes. The least they deserve is my appreciation and my respect.