Oklahoma Dreaming: Dirt
by Donna Schoenkopf
As my son Jesse said to me (maybe) after he died and I was lying prone on his grave and felt like crawling into it:
“Life is for the living.”
So I am not going to dwell any longer on cats and dogs and death and all that. At least not this time.
Life is for the living.
Amen.
So ...
Dirt.
I was a person raised on dirt. My mother would say, if we came in dirty, that we must have had a good time. She said it with a smile on her face and with pride in her voice.
What a mom.
Years and years and years later I moved to the country and dirt has become a major factor in my life.
There’s more dirt here than any place else I’ve ever been. More than in the little town in Hawaii, more than the suburbs of L.A., more than New York.
Huge amounts of dirt.
When Peewee, the genius who carved my homestead out of the wilderness, said, “You need a cement step here outside your kitchen door.” I just smiled and said, “It’s okay. I don’t mind the dirt.”
He just looked at me curiously.
I thought he just didn’t understand that I LIKE dirt. My mom said it meant you were having a good time.
HAH!
That’ll teach me to ALWAYS listen to Peewee when he says something.
You see, dirt is powerful here. It is like the wall of insects out here at night that buzz and scream and carry on so loudly that I have to close all my sliding glass doors, shutting out the cool night breeze that I love, the breeze that lets me turn off the air conditioner, the breeze that cleans the cooking smells away.
Because I literally cannot hear the television.
That’s how many bugs there are.
And that’s the metaphor I choose for this dirt. There is a LOT of it. As bountiful as the unpesticided insects that live on my property.
The reason I bring this up is because I looked up last week. I looked up at the white steel rafters and the round silver colored heating/air conditioning duct that hangs suspended overhead, and then at the tops of my white ceiling fans and shook my head.
God DAMN it!!! There’s dirt up THERE!!
You already know, at least most of you do, that there is dirt on my concrete floor. Diego the Dog brings in big sploshy puddles of mud when he chases my car home as I pass Sally the Dog’s house. He cuts through Jim’s pond, and runs down the country road to my house. I let him in when I see him wagging his tail outside the glass and he flops down on the cool, cool cement, making reddish brown swirls on the floor.
And he leaves lots and lots and lots of paw prints.
Che the Cat leaves his paw prints there, too, but they are small and delicate compared to Diego‘s. And Rosie’s are there, too. Forever.
You can never, never, NEVER get that damn mud and dirt out of the concrete. Ever. You can swirl it around with tons of water and brushes and mops and a wet vac. But you can NEVER get it out of the concrete.
Slowly my floor has taken on a reddish cast.
Not my favorite color.
Dirt.
I took off my sheets for laundering purposes and stripped the mattress cover because it is now the orange-red-brown color of the dirt outside.
I guess the fine red clay particles work their way through the fibers in the sheets and settle in.
My feet are tattooed with henna red from the mud I walk through as I water the “yard.” It settles into the cracks of my heels, between my toes, the fine lines of my skin.
I look like an abstract version of an Indian ranee on her wedding day.
The dirt has gotten in all the runners of the sliding glass doors. I push through it. I loosen the wheels of the screened doors so they’ll go up and over the crap in there.
The outside of my house has red stains all along the bottom of the siding from mud splashes from each thunderstorm passing through.
The clay suffocates my fruit trees.
Dirt outlines the fixtures of my sinks and colors the white grout of my beautiful shower a reddish pink.
The hems of all my white pants are red.
The air filter on my heating/air conditioning unit is clogged with red dirt in no time at all.
(I really want one of those fabulous filters that you can wash that’s made out of some kind of expensive precious metal, which lasts a lifetime. Sigh. Something else to wish for.)
My non-disposable vacuum cleaner bag gets clogged with dirt in minutes. I spend a lot of time taking it out and knocking the side of it against the trash can.
I tried an experiment to see how many times I would have to vacuum one spot to get the fine particles of dirt up off my floor. I still haven’t managed to get an answer on that.
The tops of all my picture frames have red dirt on them.
The tops of everything has red dirt on it.
So.
Why is this bothering me all of a sudden?
Well, it HAS gotten to be a bit much, even for a dirt lover like me. And it has to do with other people’s opinions of me.
I had a dinner party last Sunday for friends I had known since HIGH SCHOOL. I was looking forward to it.
And then I looked up and down and sideways and realized there was nothing, nothing, NOTHING I could do which would make all the dirt go away.
They would come into my house and see a lot of dirt and think I was a dirty person. Or a lazy person. Or a crappy housekeeper. Or whatever.
The dirt had defeated me. It had won. I will never have a clean house again. There will always be some dirt here. Over your head. Under your feet. IN YOUR BED WHILE YOU SLEEP!
And people will think I’m a dirty good-for-nothing, who has no pride in her home and who has no clue.
All I can say to you all is ...
I ... give ... up.
Dirt wins.
Learn to love it, baby.
donna@fourstory.org
Comments
Me being part of the dinner party, I guess I saw no dirt, only a woman of the earth,salt of the earth, a woman who is constantly thinking, deep thinking (sometimes TOO deep). A wonderful entertainer, with whom I love sharing company. As eclectic as they come. And a bit eccentric, as Butch said a real CA girl. What a breeze of fresh air. I’ll share your dirt anytime. Personally I love your house and you!
J
you literally made me cry with your response, joan.
thank you for accepting me, dirt and all, and thinking of me as a breath of fresh air, rather than a pain in the ass.
well, maybe both. which is fine by me.
love, love, love to you and butch.
2009-07-21 by Donna SchoenkopfNo one who knows you would ever think of you as a dirty or lazy person with an unkempt house. Instead, the image evoked by the beautiful red clay marks in your house will remind me that I once knew a tatooed “Indian ranee on her wedding day.”
2009-07-22 by Mike FYou, my little fresh lemonade, are a wonderful host, and your fabulous, one-of-a-kind house always looks fresh and sun-filled and well cared for to me! We townies have no red clay driveways on whom to blame our dirt! Truly enjoyed the Sunday night in question with good food and good friends - ditto last night at Jim’s! L, ncy
2009-07-25 by Nancy Reese BarrettI loved this piece. Bwa-hahahah. Los Osos is built on ancient sand dunes. Fine powder sand dunes. I now live with 6 dogs, so basically I live, not in a house of gorgeous red Oklahoma clay, but in a house of sand. I pin strips of heater-filer inserts to the windowscreens on the windows that are cracked a bit. In no time at all, they’re filthy. I can start dusting at 7 a.m, finish by 10 a.m, and have to start all over again. Sand. Fine sand and dust. Oh, did I forget to mention, I live on a dirt road.
As for people thinking I’m a dirty person. A few years ago, when I had a couch (covered with bedsheets since several litters of puppies had chewed it into swiss cheese) my cousins came to visit. I could see in their eyes that Look: How can she live like this? And I got to thinking: When I’m on my death bed, looking back over my misspent life, I WON’T be thinking about All The Beautiful Couches and Fancy Chairs and Rugs I’ve owned. Nope. I’ll be remembering the Dogs who chewed up the beautiful couch and chairs and peed on the rugs. And as for “friends” who think I’m dirty? Those are not friends. And not being friends, I don’t care what they think of me.
You keep sweeping, and then every chance you get, do a little barefoot, sole-slaping, dancey-dancey on that gorgeous Oklahoma Red Mud, slappy, slappy, slappy. It’s LAND, baby, and you OWN IT!
2009-07-27 by Ann CalhounHi Donna. Reading your story made me realize how much I miss you. You always made me look at life with different eyes. I love how you look at obstacles in the face and laugh at them. Thank you for helping me see that we can accept bad situations with humor. I’ll make sure I take some gardening boots when I visit your beautiful red land :)
2009-07-27 by Esmeralda Jimenez
Dirt wins. And rust never sleeps.
2009-07-21 by Donny