Cleaning
There’s a chance of rain this weekend. So, yesterday I cleaned the front gutter. I climbed a ladder and used my battery-powered leaf blower. The job was fairly quick. The ground along the front of the house is fairly level. I could have fallen, but I took my time and measured every step. I used my nice extension ladder. There was a rhythm to the job. Set up. Blow. Leave the blower. Move the ladder. Do it again.
As I write this and tell the tale, I wonder how strange a world I must occupy to someone who lives a different life, someone without a home perhaps, or someone who simply chooses another lifestyle, a way to live without the need to do maintenance. They might think my life bereft of meaning, a man caught in the web of his goods, forced to serve them, to keep them functioning. Or, if they are well to do, they might think, how sad he has to do his own gutter cleaning. They would probably shudder to know I clean my own bathroom.
Speaking of cleaning, I noticed the state cleaned out a homeless encampment in Austin yesterday, a 21st century Hooverville. Our state does not like homeless people. They’re viewed as a pestilence. Making it uncomfortable, however, for them to find a place to live doesn’t seem like much of a solution to whatever is causing the problem of homelessness. But maybe that’s why I’m not a policymaker, and I’m still cleaning my own gutters.