4: Cleaning, control, and coronavirus
How the pandemic changed me from a messy bitch into a clean freak
Last week, Haley wrote a beautiful essay about how the election and the pandemic highlight moral and cultural shortcomings in the United States and why it’s tiring but necessary to care about others even when it’s not always reciprocated. It’s been on my mind all week as the election results trickled in. While I want to be relieved that Trump lost (even if I have many reservations about a Biden presidency), it is still painful to me that the ways he has tangibly harmed Americans were not a dealbreaker for millions of people. In fact, for some, it was even more motivation to support him. I don’t know if I have much more to say about the election than that. I am so tired and frustrated—we all deserve more.
Haley’s writing also made me reflect on my own perceptions and experiences from the past few months. As the pandemic continues on, I have started to investigate my impulses to judge others a bit more. The conclusion I am coming to is that while I can disagree with the individual choices people are making, ultimately that frustration, anger, or judgement is much more productive and righteous when aimed towards the systems and people in power that have failed us during this catastrophic event. As I mentioned in my essay about veganism, I don’t think individual and systemic action are mutually exclusive, or that you are exempt from examining your own choices just because those choices are made in a system that is fundamentally flawed. I think we still owe each other careful thought and consideration in our actions. But at the end of the day, no single person could have prevented the COVID-19 deaths of nearly a quarter of a million people in the United States. The government did not show up for us, and they are ultimately who needs to answer for this.
In a way, my post this week is also response to what she wrote, or, perhaps more accurately, details my response to the slew of stressors that this year has brought upon most of us. To put it plainly: I have become a clean person.
Or at least cleaner than I was before. I have always been messy to some extent. In my teen years into college, you would be lucky to walk into my room with any sliver of carpet showing. I was, for whatever reason, allergic to putting clothes back in their place after trying them on or taking them off after a long day. This, of course, built quickly into a mess of epic proportions, but because I am the little gremlin that I am, I would quickly adjust to my new surroundings and pushed off cleaning until I absolutely needed to—at least according to my own litmus tests. Many people would have been compelled to take action much earlier.
The change began in January as I wrote my summative essays for my first term of grad school. I am even more procrastinatory than I am messy, which is saying something, and the two traits play off each other in all the worst ways. I locked myself into my room when I returned to London after winter break, willing myself to get at least some words down onto my empty document but to no avail. After a certain point, my normal procrastination methods (social media, Netflix, random articles and YouTube videos, rinse and repeat) ceased to spark the same instant gratification that they normally delivered.
I figured that if I was going to be putting off my essay, I may as well do something productive in its stead. So, I unpacked my suitcase. As a reader, you might be thinking um…ok? Good for you? But doing so within a week of returning from a destination instead of letting the dirty clothes and toiletries populate the little floorspace I had was a massive breakthrough for me. I cleaned the rest of my room, did my dishes, and even made my bed. And it felt SO GOOD. For the next couple weeks as I worked on my papers, every time I stressed myself out or needed a break, I popped up from my desk and tidied.
This habit has persisted and even evolved since then. Until March, it was enough for me to tidy up every day or every other day, vacuuming and deep cleaning my bathroom every so often. Then the pandemic hit.
For the first few weeks, months even, I felt a massive loss of control. My normal, already nagging anxiety mutated into something nasty. Insomnia kept me up at night, worrying about anything from the obvious, like the pandemic and the health of my loved ones, to the more irrational, like home invasions and carbon monoxide poisoning. It seems silly writing it out now, but at the time, these pesky fears that plagued my mind felt very valid, and to an extent, some of them were. The virus devastated, and continues to devastate, the lives of so many people, and the thought that there was so little I could do to control that for myself or others weighed me down.
I don’t want to psychoanalyze myself too much here, mainly because I think before this transition my messy tendencies were not deeper or more meaningful than my pure laziness. But around this time of the pandemic when my anxiety was particularly bad and I felt so uncertain about my future, I started to clean not only my room more but also began to organize any part of life or space that would allow it. With an almost frantic energy, I decluttered my email, completely revamped my bookmark system on Google Chrome, and made my computer desktop the most serene and clean it’s ever been. With so many things in my life up in the air, those moments when I felt I had real power and control soothed me. When my room and my laptop were less chaotic and scattered, so were my thoughts.
As I will go on to say at the end, I think that there should be a limit to this type of cleaning bender, but I wanted to share things that have genuinely given me more peace and grounding in 2020. Here are a few of the resources, methods, and tips I have for getting your shit together when the world feels like it is falling apart:
Pocket – This whole thing was inspired in part by Anne Helen Petersen’s “Digital Reading Hygiene” edition of her newsletter. In it, she describes herself as a “Pocket evangelist,” and I think I might be one, too. Pocket is an app for your phone, desktop, and internet browser that allows you to save articles, essays, or any webpage, really, for later reading. I was a shell of a person before it came into my life. Before Pocket, I either kept screenshots of pieces that looked interesting to me or haphazardly bookmarked them in whatever Google Chrome folder I deemed appropriate. But now, I am enlightened. To have everything all in one place and the ability to archive things to come back to later delights me to no end.
Nuzzel – This app is very compatible with Pocket. I’m not even necessarily sure if it brings more order and organization to my life, but it does make finding articles and news easier. Nuzzel connects with your Twitter account and lets you know what articles or stories are being shared and talked about the most on your feed. Most of these I Pocket, but it’s still good to have an awareness of what people are talking about, especially if you have FOMO in all areas of your life like me.
5-Minute Tidy – As I mentioned, cleaning for me used to happen about once a month when the mess became so hazardous or plain horrifying that I needed to have a 2-hour deep cleaning session. The 5-minute tidy is the antithesis to this— clean up as you go every day, and your room will always be clean(ish). I don’t know why I am so shocked that this is effective, but I am. I like to do it right after I shower, whether it’s morning or night (or midday because I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it but I am very unemployed!), to really enhance the benefits. A physical and mental cleanse.
Bullet Journal – For years I was a devoted Bullet Journal-er. I started in my senior year of high school and remained relatively faithful in my practice until the summer before my senior year of university when my backpack was tragically stolen at a rest stop. The thought that a nearly complete journal I had been keeping for over a couple years just got snatched and likely discarded still brings me deep pain, so I can’t think about it too much. Anyway! Bullet Journaling is a type of journaling system that is really customizable—you can basically make it do what whatever you need it to do. For me, it helps me stay organized and on top of things, but it also helps me track goals, remember new songs or books to look at, and serves as the perfect gallery for all my doodles. If this interests you at all, I highly suggest checking out the introduction videos that Ryder Carroll, the creator, has made and from there checking out all the creative spins people have put on their own journals.
Goodreads and Letterboxd – I am lumping these two together because I feel that they provide very similar services, which is to organize the art and media you consume. Goodreads is a platform that allows you to log and rate the books you read, and flag ones that you want to read or own in the future. I like it because you can create a variety of shelves (think fantasy, YA, favorites, food writing, etc.) to organize your books beyond just “read” and “want to read.” Goodreads is owned by Amazon, which I have feelings about, but just a reminder to buy your books from local and independent bookstores. They need those sales; Amazon really does not! Letterboxd operates similarly—you log movies you watch and can rate and review them. Again, you can also make lists or tag movies with key words and phrases to make organizing and finding them even easier. Both have social functions as well in that you can follow other people to see what they have been reading or watching and what their thoughts are, but I don’t pay as much attention to this aspect.
OneTab – I am notorious for having 20+ tabs open on multiple windows on Google Chrome. I have now managed to cut that down to about five at any given time, which to me is a big success. It’s all because of this Chrome extension. With the simple click of a button it saves all the links from your session, so if you ever need to go back to them you can see them all in one place. My laptop’s poor fan is very thankful for it.
Unroll.Me – Ok, so I haven’t actually used this. BUT Sophia Benoit recommended it in a tweet, and I would love to try but it doesn’t operate in the EU. It is a service that allows you to easily unsubscribe from pesky promotion and advertising emails. I have been doing this all manually and it takes forever, so I imagine this is a lifesaver when trying to empty your inbox.
I want to finish this off by recognizing the limitations of cleaning and organizing. Despite my best attempts to exercise control and get my life together, there is so much I am not capable of. Besides staying home and wearing a mask when outside, I can’t control whether or not I get sick. I can’t control the job market or get a job just by willing it to happen. I can’t control the government and make them give me a visa so I can stay in the same country as my boyfriend. I can’t control the weather or traffic or anyone’s mood.
Beyond all of this, at the height of my decluttering frenzy I realized I was spending so much time trying to get things into order that I wasn’t actually enjoying those things for their intended purpose at all. All my clothes, books, movies, recipes, emails, etc. were organized now, but I hadn’t styled, read, watched, cooked, or opened almost any of them in the process. My objective was to make doing these things easier and more accessible on a day-to-day basis but I wound up obsessing so much over their placement or category that I completely missed the mark.
So, yeah, maybe tidy your room. It will make you feel better. Create a list, go through your emails, and organize your bookmarks, too, if it is helpful. But life is pretty tough for most of us right now, so don’t forget to enjoy the fruits of your labor and let go every once in a while. I am learning that sometimes the best thing to do when you lose control is not to try to regain it, but accept it for what it is.
I’ve compiled a relatively short list of Things We Don’t Hate, mostly because I spent an inordinate amount of time refreshing my news apps this week.
We’re in lockdown in the UK! I wasn’t exactly leaving the house much to begin with, so it’s not a massive change for me. To clarify, the lockdown itself is not a Thing We Don’t Hate, because obviously lockdown is not fun even if it is necessary. What I am excited about are the DIY meal kits that many restaurants are offering right now. While in London in the summer, I tried to do delivery from small and local restaurants when possible to support them while being safe. Now that I am out of delivery range, I am excited to have some really good food and hopefully still be helping to alleviate some of the financial burden that many small businesses (and all the people that they employ) are bearing right now. Here are a couple lists if you are also in the UK.
I watched Coco on Día de Muertos and cried even harder than I did the first time, though that’s probably because I was on plane then and didn’t want to alarm my fellow travelers. It is one of my favorite animated films ever and made me miss my family so much. I was going to prepare an ofrenda but ultimately didn’t get around to it. Luckily my parents did, and I got see all their pictures.
I loved this essay by Joanna Fuertes about Anthony Bourdain’s influence on travelers in a digital age and the myth of authenticity. Although I have a very soft spot for Anthony Bourdain, I was really interested by her perspective. As someone who really likes to research and plan before any trip to get the “best” or most “well-rounded” experience possible, it made me reflect on my own travel and dining habits, and for that I am grateful.
When Grimes’s new album came out earlier this year, I never got a chance to listen to it. I finally came back to it recently and have been listening in particular to “You’ll miss me when I’m not around.” It makes me feel really vengeful and vindictive in a kind of sexy way? That makes no sense and neither do those emotions as, to my knowledge, I have not been wronged lately, but it’s sort of fun nonetheless!
Finally, in a bit of exciting personal news, I got my dissertation result and am so relieved and happy with it. I had never completed a project of that size before, and as soon as I submitted it a panic set in. My worries loomed over for the past couple months, and to see that they were largely unfounded is such a nice surprise. Speaking of Anthony Bourdain, it was all about how American food and travel television represents, and often Others, Mexican food and culture.
