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My Own Personal Sky

~ what I'm learning while growing up

My Own Personal Sky

Tag Archives: dirt

Olympic denial

29 Sunday Jan 2012

Posted by paffenbutler in Being Yourself, Marriage, Stories From My Childhood

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being yourself, change, cooking, dirt, inspire, marriage, mother, parents, psychotherapy

My parents taught me to not see things – to deny their existence. We were kind of like Olympic deniers. I am aware I’d been denying feelings because sometimes they burst forth inappropriately before I went to psychotherapy and figured out their proper role in my life. That was one thing. But I realized when I met my husband that I’d been denying the existence of dirt as well. I do love dirt. I was raised pretty close to the earth in a farmhouse that melded a bit with the out-of-doors, as we called it, what with critters visiting the laundry room at times, birds caught up in the attic occasionally, and constant noises in the walls. Dad came home every day in a filthy car wearing filthy clothes reeking of manure, and Mom was more of a cook than a cleaner. Dust and dirt and cobwebs were kind of accents to my mother’s decorating. My love of dirt comes honestly. So when my husband and I moved in together I was not the cleaner – he was. I cooked and he cleaned. The first few times he cleaned the bathroom I was shocked at the degree to which I’d denied dirt. That thing sparkled!

Wow, I didn’t even see all that dirt!

(See my husband’s haiku about cleaning the shower on my post of 9 November 2011.)

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