Dirt

"I placed a jar in Tennessee."

-- Wallace Stevens, "Anecdote of the Jar"

--

Tomorrow, a celebration of my sister's and my graduation will take place in our house. I use the word house rather than home because we have successfully, in the last three days, sterilized the whole place, removing any evidence that people, rather than furniture and decorations, actually live here.

Cobwebs gone--a plus. Carpets free of pet stains. But also folded blankets growing cold on basement racks, books shoved into corners, and a pool table that looks too nice to touch.

Dad brought Lola back from the airport, and already she is scurrying about, tendering wounds with coffee, clucking advice to my mom, asking for cooking specifications. Lola is a Filipino word for grandma. At almost eighty years old, it's a wonder she keeps going. Three weeks ago she was diagnosed with gout, yet the lady walks, runs, and plays with puppies.

It's funny, the way my mom talks about my room. She insists that I sift my bookshelf and give her a box of books I'm willing to "get rid of," that I empty my closet, pack up my possessions. She's sure I'm never coming back once I leave. My parents joke and watch the mess accumulate, but not for too long. I think they want me to leave that room as pristine as the house currently is, in the hopes that it will seem as if I never lived there. It will be a museum exhibit of the past eight years--trinkets, posters, neat rows and stacks--but it won't smell, feel, or look the way I kept it. Those details, the dirt of life, like the dirt that had life breathed into it, will be gone.

It's not that they want to be rid of me; it's not that caustic. It's just good defense. The empty nest has to be bigger, scarier than you expect. Like chicks just out of eggs, you chirp at the sky and explore the new nothing around you. Like mothers and fathers, you soon set out to fill that nest, with whatever scraps are there.

But I'm reassured by the dirt still lying in corners, the clutter under cushions, the dust lining picture frames. Nothing gold can stay, and nothing clean can live.