The Sleep-disrupting Obsession of Tidying Up

I’m flirting with the edges of being fastidious about cleaning, to the point of almost wanting to seek help.

Let me explain.

This morning as I slept in gloriously and well past my usual 4:30-5:00a.m. rising time, I was in a dream where I’d spilled a couple large handfuls of beads on a short shag carpet (side note: the character “Hank” from Corner Gas is with me. Lovely comedy series out of Canada, worth watching if you have Amazon Prime. The beads were his. No idea how he featured in my REM sleep episode). I could feel myself slowly waking up but I tried to push myself back into the dream so I could finish cleaning up the mess I’d made. If you’re an armchair psychologist reading this, I’ve just given you your moment.

I took a rake to the chicken run the other day, just to see the bare soil cleared of the stones and pebbles they displace for their feather-cleaning dirt baths. A few of the neighborhood raccoons also like to climb in there at night and dig like they know where they’re going, leaving ankle-turning divots in random spots between the gate and the coop. Since I prefer to start and end my days without fall or injury, I consider raking the run a safety measure first and foremost (but will allow the full rush of the cleaning thrill to race through me and savor it). Of course they mess it up after I’m finished. I don’t mind. I’ll get to sweep it into a semblance of order again, like one of those desktop Zen gardens with the sand and a little rake. I think I’m onto something here—poultry care as Meditation. Follow me for more life enhancement tips.

On my morning walks, I pick up fallen limbs and branches to save that much more wear and tear on the mower’s blades, basking in the long view of a clear green path that looks like velvet. But when I arrive in the woods and sink into that one place where the deer trails crisscross beneath a grandfatherly black walnut and a grove of blue beech saplings, it’s all I can do not to reach down and move the scraps of bark that litter the forest floor at their feet, scooping them into a tidy little pile for some wild creature to notice and appreciate. Oh, and there’s a branch blocking the path and, while I’m bent double with my face near the mayapples, let me just pick up those twigs and…I stop, drop whatever is in my hands and remember what I’ve read about how every forest makes good use of what the trees give up. What I call “tidying up” is actually displacement for thousands of organisms trying to keep house in their own way. Just walking on their tiny communities is disruption enough. It’s a wonder the woods let me back in at all, behaving all human like I do. Gently chastened, I step slowly and carefully along the path back toward the main trail and head towards the meadow. Surely there’s something I can rearrange there without causing any harm. Sigh…it never ends.

I’m also a clean-as-I-go cook and baker, starting with a full dishpan of soapy water to collect the utensils, pots and pans that have served their purpose in the mixing and folding part of the recipe. By the time the parchment-lined baking sheet is in the oven, the drainer is a monument to dish Jenga, droplets of water sliding down the sides of the large auction-scored Tupperware mixing bowl now happily on its way to “dry”. I can sit at the table with a cup of tea, my elbow inches away from the baking racks where those gluten-free almond chocolate chip cookies will cool nicely, the only chore remaining to lift one to my mouth while it’s still warm. You may call that OCD; I call it peace and cleverness.

If Mom were here, she’d shake her head and insist I didn’t inherit this commitment to clean from her. She’s being too hard on herself. She was a Master Organizer and we learned the art of “everything in its place” at her knee. Measuring cups were stacked neatly and stored in the cupboard, their handles always—always—pointing in the same direction and facing the cupboard door so you could reach in and grab them easily. Repurposed butter tubs and other plastic containers, with their matching and perfectly fitting lids, mind you, knew the same ordered contentment. Her sheet music and songbooks were safely tucked away in the bench of the baby grand piano in the family room; we knew exactly where the olive-green Reader’s Digest Favorites collection was when we needed it for an impromptu sing-a-long. And downstairs beneath the pantry shelves, where cans were arranged in helpful rows by type and size, with creamed corn in the back, hidden by us kids in the hopes she wouldn’t find it (she always did), large plastic trash bins held our Halloween costumes, folded neatly and wrapped in trash bags to keep out any moisture. We might have looked a bit wrinkled on our annual trick-or-treat forays into the neighborhood, but we never smelled of mildew. That’s good parenting, that is.

It would seem I’ve moved those life lessons forward into our own land-based rhythm, perhaps in an attempt to keep such a vast space manageable where the borders of wild and tame shake hands. In a life where our eyes land on projects in process no matter what direction we’re facing, the act and art of cleaning, even a small corner of something, feels like control in the most noble sense. Yesterday’s storm may have scattered cottonwood branches everywhere, but I can walk unencumbered through the living room without tripping on stray shoes or gathering little clumps of cat hair on my toes. We can eat safely from each plate and bowl stored in the kitchen cabinets and see our reflections in the bathroom mirror, our faces unfreckled by dried splatters of toothpaste from last night’s oral hygiene rituals. These days, if it brings peace to a furrowed brow, I’m all for it, no matter how it may appear to a stranger’s way of thinking.

So what if it invades even my most pleasantly quirky dreams? I’m still getting some decent REM sleep and if I awaken with one less mess to clean up, all the better. Now, if you’ll forgive me, it’s time to let the chickens out and I’ll need to fetch my rake for that.