The Gift of a Messy Home

 

It seems to be a universal truth that no matter how many books one has, ones precious child will fixate on just a few and make you read those and ONLY those books until they know it by heart and you want to stab your eyes out. And while I did get REALLY tired of reading Seseme Streets Big and Small and Elmo’s Wild Wild West, there were a couple that I never tired of reading. And one of those was a book called Peek-A-Boo!

When Wylie was a baby I was forever buying used children’s books for us to read together. Some of these books I bought because I thought he would like them, and some of these books I bought because I thought I would like them.  Peek-A-Boo was a book that originally belonged to the latter group, but in the end belonged to both. I can’t remember where I bought it – if it was at a thrift store or a used book store, but this little book brought more comfort and joy to both of us than I could ever have expected.

The book was written by British authors, Janet and Allen Alhberg, and its original title is Peepo! which I am guessing is the UK version of Peek-A-Boo!  It was inspired by the birth of their daughter Jessica, but the images are based on Allen’s childhood  home in England’s Black Country, where he was an illegitimate child adopted into a working-class family in the WWII years.

 

The discovery of this book coincided with my discovery of English country design. With my discovery of English roses, farm sinks, Shabby Chic, and French Tea Towels. It also coincided with a growing belief that I was botching every part of my life up as I struggled to keep a house, raise a baby, be a help and encouragement to a husband who worked full-time and was in college, manage our meager finances, and tackle any small very-part-time job that was sent my way.

In the beginning I loved this book because of how English it was. I loved all the bits and pieces of English life. During the many repetive readings I would study all the small details that the Ahlberg’s had given to the story. The red stripe on the table-cloth, , the blue striped crockery on the shelf, the Victory Garden in the back yard. The wallpaper pattern in the bedroom, the Mirror in the parlor. The portrait of Winston Churchill hanging from the picture rail.

And I have to say that when I first read the book I sat a little in judgement of how messy this families house was. I mean, sure there was plenty to look at, but good grief. But then I looked closer (probably around the one hundredth reading,) and I begin to notice something.

I begin to notice how happy the family was. I begin to notice how the father was involved in as much homekeeping as the mother. I noticed how the grandmother was always dotting about helping. How in each picture there were smiles, and little acts of kindness, and a sense of joy. And everywhere – from the little shoe left under the stool in the kitchen, to the kids chasing each other, to the piled up laundry, and dirty dishes – there were signs of life. On each and every page there were signs of a family living life together. Messy, beautiful, real-life signs. And suddenly I didn’t feel so alone. I didn’t feel like so much of a failure. And I begin to see the gift of having a messy house but being a happy a family.

I have pinned on Pinterest an anonymous quote that says “Crying doesn’t indicate that you’re weak. Since birth it has always been a sign that you are alive.”

I think maybe the same is true for a messy home.

Maybe a messy home isn’t a sign of  failure. Maybe a messy home is a sign those in the home  are living life to the fullest.  Maybe a messy home means the house is bursting at the seams with life and love and activity.

Maybe it’s isn’t just messy at all. Maybe it is beautimess.

Now like any good thing  – ice cream, wine, HGTV, – I can take this too far and become a glutton and go too far- maybe you can too.  Dishes do need to be washed, beds need to be occasionally made, laundry does function better if it is put away now and again, and a clean toilet is a good thing for everyone. And as a Christ follower I believe in being a good steward of all we have been given – and this means taking care of our home and our property and our material possessions. But being a good steward and cleaning my house out of shame are two completely separate things. One is healthy and one is not.

I know that some people love to clean. It is their happy place, and it is easy for them. They put things away naturally, The top of their dresser is never piled with a weeks worth of used clothes, books do not pile up on every surface, and they do not have half-finished craft projects on the dining room table for weeks. And that is great. For them.

But that is not me. And that is not us. We are a family of creatives and dawlders  we make a lot of beautimess. And we clean up our messes – eventually, in general.  But as our family learns to live a slower version of modern life one of the things that I have had to get rid of is that infernal internal voice that tells me that I should be someone else. Someone more driven. Someone neater. More tidy. More focused on baseboards. The voice that trys to convince me that if our house isn’t pristine all the time then I have failed. That nag that is always trying to get me to believe that how clean my house is a reflection of my worth as woman, as a Christian woman, and my success as a homekeeper.

(Note: Can we just all agree that cleanliness is NOT next to godliness? The voices telling us to be better homekeepers are loud enough without adding God to the mix. Can I get an amen?)

I like a clean house, I really do. I love those few minutes when all the laundry is done and all the surfaces are clean and the floors shine and nothing is out-of-place.

But while I like a clean house, I love a happy family.

And sometimes I get to have both.

And sometimes I have to choose.

And more often than not I choose happy family.

Our kids are 10 and 14, and the time we have with them living under our roof this way is getting shorter by the day. When they pack their bags and move off into homes of their own, I don’t want them to look back on our years together and say “sheesh, my mom was a real bitch about keeping the floors clean.”   I want them to remember a homelife that was full of life. I want them to learn stewardship and how to clean toilets and mop floors, but I also want them to learn how to put down the dust rag and go outside and just BE.  I want them to know how to choose to be present to the beautiful ordinary in front of them, rather always thinking of the next thing on their to-do list.

So there are days when we ignore the laundry so that we can read and draw and fiddle around in the barn and sit by the pond. There are nights, after a long day of work and school, when we ignore the toothpaste in the bathroom sink and eat dinner on the couch and watch a movie together. There are weekends  where we skip all the vacuuming and moping, and instead we take naps and we meet friends for dinner and go to church and make a big messy pot of spaghetti for dinner.

There are times when Sweet Man and I have to crack the whip and we all have to bite the bullet and get things back to square one around here. Days when we all pitch in and get on top of the laundry and the dishes and the toilets.  But it is not the driving force of our days. The care and stewardship of our home is part of our family life, but the compulsion to keep things Martha-perfect is not.  Our house is often mess because we are living in it. We are living big, and loud, and slow, and quiet, and impefectly and lovingly.

Our homelife is beautimess.

And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Now if you will excuse me, I need to clean the mountain of clothes off my dresser and fish the lawn chairs out of the pond.

much love friends,

J

 

*If you want to know more about Janet and Allen, their work and their daughter Jessica you can read this great Interview.

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