Hypatia’s commitment to cleaning each day was a goal that would be hard for some to understand why it would be so challenging. In some ways, it has been the project she has remained the most consistent with since its inception and that demonstrates the largest shift in her daily behavior. During the summer, cleaning is daily activity. Generally this involves dishes and a straightening up of the kitchen. But, on the rare occasion, when Hypatia has large blocks of free time during the school year, she will use it to ‘deep clean’ some part of the house. This spring she bravely cleaned the ceiling fan in her bedroom. Six years of a house that breathes dust left a blanket of Somustuzz (So much dust it’s fuzz) on each blade. Had it really been white all along? Another, rather selfish, motive for cleaning is that Hypatia discovered if the kitchen is clean when J comes home, he is more likely to cook her dinner. Just as Hypatia has learned that coming home to a clean house helps her feel calm and sometimes even lifts her spirits, so it does for J to come home to a clean kitchen. In the past few months however, Hypatia began to notice that clean, or even tidy, isn't a magic wand for making a home look nice and put together. Hypatia has, slowly, begun the process of un-cluttering. This involves lots of rummaging through old clothes, tchotchkes, and décor and then whisking it away to Goodwill. There is a new rule in the house too: If you bring something in, something else needs to leave. While Hypatia secretly fantasizes about a sleek, modern, minimalist home-that will never happen. However, saying no to free stuff and goodbye to old stuff is a step in the right direction.
While revisiting Hypatia’s month of giving, it was
interesting to follow where the project began and where it ended up. After five months of attempts at bettering one’s
self, December ended leaving Hypatia in quite a funk. It can be overwhelming, and emotionally
heavy, to make and keep one’s self aware of all the need in a community. Then layer with that the commitment to be
proactive, it is easy to see why many people simply bury their heads and forget
about it. This is an issue that Hypatia
continues to struggle with each and every day.
This is also an issue that comes up again in the Twenty and Nine Days
project. The silver lining is that
Hypatia has made some life changes and choices that do give back, not only to a
community, but the world. And sometimes,
giving isn’t about finding where the need is, but ascribing to the notion of
paying it forward. J is really good
about this, particularly with tipping, and has helped Hypatia practice this
with more regularity. Little things like
rounding up the tip or helping bag at the grocery store. Niceties that may help
brighten someone’s day. Finally, it is
worth mentioning a dramatic growth for Hypatia given December’s Day Seventeen
post. She talks about struggling to have
compassion for the strangers around her, even when they are at their most
irritating. About two months ago,
Hypatia had an experience while driving that crystallized the notion of what you
give, you get. The details are fuzzy at
this point, but the basic story is that she was driving in a parking lot when
some other driver did something completely stupid, and probably dangerous,
which resulted in an unfair and irrational name calling rant at that person in
the safety of her own little blue car.
Annoyed, she drove out on the road and moments later proceeded to do
something equally stupid, and possibly dangerous, causing another driver to
wave hands and presumably spew some choice words. When this happens to Hypatia,
when she clearly makes another driver upset, she will often cry. So at this exact moment-a moment of mixed
emotions: sadness, defensiveness, and shame-she vowed to never fall victim to
road rage. She concluded that if
everyone gave everyone else the benefit of the doubt as drivers, such as ‘maybe
their lost’ or ‘maybe they just got fired and their mind is somewhere else’ (as
Hypatia’s usually is in these scenarios) that we would all drive around as
happier people. There is a lot of mental
and emotional energy spent on hating strangers, even if just for a fleeting
moment. What is the point? J often touts
cars as one of the great evils of our society because when we are safely
confined to our little metal boxes, we don’t need to care or think about other
people; thus we lose our humanity. That
experience really encapsulated J’s argument.
Since this change in her driving-mindset, Hypatia is a noticeably
happier driver. It is actually quite
freeing to just not care if someone is driving like a jack ass and just move on
with one’s day.
