What I Washed, And What I Washed For

Worse Than Mine, But You Get It

So already, I'd put it off for far too long. And then came the moment truth a couple of weeks ago: as I walked into my living room around sunrise one morning, I wondered if the beige tint of the morning fog had something to do with the California wildfires--and then realized I was seeing a pale, clear fog-free sky through the greasy film on the upper half of my double hung windows. I knew then I really had to do something about my dirty windows before late fall's colder temperatures made me dread the job of washing them even more.

I'd meant to wash my windows last spring, and then came the coronavirus pandemic with all its claims on attention and purpose. By the time summer's high temperatures arrived and settled in, the wise course was to keep the shades lower and wait for the days of fewer insects, dissipated road dust, and less pollen.

But I'd had my moment of reckoning, and ragweed* season was over; it was time to do the job. I was tired of literally seeing through a glass, darkly. Now I was resolved.

I started off by listening to weather forecasts. As one who loves October's bright blue weather, I'd been disappointed by the month's summer-like warmth, but I now saw an opportunity in its peculiar mildness, a method to its seasonal madness. And so I chose a blue-gray morning on a Tuesday predicted to have temperatures that would top out in the middle sixties.

Realtor Raymond Chan's Courtyard Photo

Though I have only five windows in total, I knew I had a big job ahead of me, so I set aside a full morning for it. I live in an old factory building that became condominiums in 1987, and my windows are no longer young. They often stick when they should slide, and slide when they should stick. Parts of them swing out for cleaning, and because my space is small, washing them requires the movement of furniture and objects. 

My plan was to finish one window before moving on to the next, and to remove the screens as well as the storm windows for cleaning. I'd cleaned my storm windows before, but I'd never taken on my screens. If I put each one in my husband's shower and saturated it with Clorox Cleaner + Bleach, I surmised, the accumulated grunge would start to loosen its grip while I cleaned the storm windows in the other room. Then, with some energetic scrubbing and rinsing, I'd banish the enemy handily.

And so I began. And as I was doing the first window, I realized that I'd never be done by lunchtime. First of all, when the screen's rinse water ran charcoal gray, I knew I'd better spray, scrub, and rinse each screen twice before returning it to the window; I just couldn't let the pummeling rains of the next nor'easter pass through those screens to splatter my newly-washed windows with greasy old schmutz. Second of all, given that I'd already cleared them, it only made sense to wash my grimy, pollen-covered windowsills as well--and what was the point of doing that if I didn't also wash those removed objects on which pollen and grime had also accumulated? Finally, since I'd gone to the trouble of moving furniture, it only made sense to vacuum those now-revealed hard-to-reach corners.

I also have to confess that by the time I finished bending and stretching to clean that third screen, I also knew that I was using some muscles I wasn't in the habit of using: I told myself I needed to be careful, take my time, do but not overdo. This was going to be an all-day job.

And I was fine with that realization; as a matter of fact, in that moment, I felt sure that I was doing "what really mattered"--and there have been many days during the pandemic when I wasn't sure at all what really mattered. 

Suddenly, I realized where and how I was standing. My back was turned to the television screen, but I could hear the familiar voices of several journalists with whom I've been surviving the months of the pandemic and the presidential campaign. My front was turned toward the window I was sometimes wiping, sometimes rubbing, sometimes wrestling with to make sure its various parts were replaced in the frame as they should be.

Yes, there I was, standing between my two windows onto the world: the living room window through which, especially during these days of sheltering at home, I watch the sky, the trees, the weather, the people walking by or hauling groceries from their car--the world beyond my apartment walls that's often so sweetly, seasonally, mundanely normal (even if the people are all masked); and the television screen, my virtual window onto the wider world that often helps me at least partially understand what has happened, is happening, and might happen in this complex, crazy, sometimes depressing, sometimes uplifting world of ours.

You could say that (or better yet, I could say that) I was washing my windows out of love--love for the world, love for my neighbors and the people in my life who are also trying to go about their lives as normally as possible when nothing's normal--and who are also much relegated to experiencing the world through their own windows and screens, love for myself and my sense of what I need to keep moving forward with some optimism.

Wow! I surprised myself with those thoughts of love. But not as much as I would have a year ago. Once I'd had them and expressed them to myself, there was nothing to do except make some lunch to fortify myself for an afternoon of more window-washing. Peanut butter, a good apple, a sense of purpose and productiveness, virtual companionship, the feeling part of being "something bigger than me," and time: what more did I need for it to be a good day?

And good days can be few and far between these days. Even before I pledged to wash my windows, I had already been thinking about this fall's strange sadness, wondering how it might amplify the stress and disorientation so many are feeling. When Eastern Standard Time begins the day after Hallowe'en, so too will the time of shorter afternoons and colder temperatures, this year without the cheerful prospect of gathering with lots of friends and family members around food-heaped Thanksgiving tables, in front of sparkling Christmas trees and lit menorahs, before blazing fireplaces. For sure, "home for the holidays" won't mean the same thing this year. It's a loss for sure. But I suspect our imaginations will triumph, as will our wills to connect and celebrate.

The months ahead promise more time spent alone or apart, thus more time spent observing the world through windows and on screens. So if we can make our homes places we love being, at least most of the time, we owe that to ourselves. As for me personally, I seldom mind being at home for long stretches if I can look out of my windows onto the world, or some world. Wherever I manage to get my "views beyond," they always give me hope: there is light out there. Somewhere. Always.

* Photo included in Nature's Wonders. (2015, October 16). Hay Fever? Don't Blame Goldenrod! [web log]. http://mothernature2014.blogspot.com/2015/10/hay-fever-dont-blame-goldenrod.html.