Domestic Arts

by Deborah Globus

"I no longer call such tasks housework.  I call them the domestic arts, paying attention to to all the ways they return me to my senses.  When the refrigerator has nothing in it but green onions that have turned to slime and plastic containers full of historic leftovers, I know my art is languishing   When I cannot tell whether that is a sleeping cat or an engorged dust ball under my bed, I know I have been spending too much time thinking.  It is time to get down on my knees.  After I have spent a whole morning ironing shirts, folding linens, rubbing orange scented wax into wood and cleaning dead bugs out of light fixtures, I can hear the whole house purring for the rest of the afternoon.  I can often hear myself singing as well, satisfied with such simple domestic purpose."


Barbara Brown Taylor, pg 120 of An Altar in the World

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