On the broom

The first thing I did when I came home this evening was to pick up the broom by the door. Holding it upside-down, I paraded in with my staff, as if to say "My home is my castle." Yeah. Yeah. What was it I had come home to do today? To sweep, or to take my staff out onto the balcony where I might hold audience? So many current subjects to address. So much dust that has collected here.
As absurd as I may have appeared from a distance, I did actually choose to go out into the chill and tramp the sooty snow on my balcony. I didn't go out to clean, though. It's too early for that. I went out because I wanted to count the patined pipes of the wind chimes that had been hanging out there so quietly all winter. I weathered the cold to confirm that my instrument did still, in fact, consist of five pipes, all the prerequisites for a global pentatonic scale, enough for amazing grace to sound in passing winds.

Once out in the cold I had to lean and stretch across the pots, planter boxes, and insulation material, and get into a position to poke and pat around the rails to distinguish the brass pipes from the surrounding wrought iron bars. I had to give them a knock to break the dry twist of last year's grape vines, climbing roses and sweet peas. My rummaging failed to make much of a peal. Was I deaf or had the filth of the traffic on the street below, coupled with winter's icy grip, muted them so?

Eager to hear more, I took ahold of the bristles of the broom, its scruffy mane, lifted the wooden handle and having caught sight of what I was looking for, hit the bars and pipes as hard as I could. Damned. I wanted to hear those pipes, loudly and clearly. Then suddenly, overcome by a fear that someone - on the street below, on their way home from their job, to the bus, so-called normal people on their way to the grocery store, or to pick up children from school, afraid of losing their jobs - might misinterpret what I was up to. So I stopped and went in. Silly goose? Ghost? What had I seen? What had I heard? Was it the angry shout of a rebel army in the courtyard below, calling for my abdication? Delusions of grandeur? Someone else's resignation? My own? Or was it simply an elusive glee in the cacaphony of an unexpected prison break? I LOLed, indoors.

How could I ever forget? The broom? My ever faithful vehicle?

One of my first jobs in this old – new to me – country, to which I came ostensibly for love, was to rise each day at the crack of dawn and clean the floors of the John Wall AB Hardware Store – everything for house and home. I swept, though not groomed to push a broom. I didn't mind much. My colleagues were all sorts of friendly women from other countries, none of whom spoke much Swedish. We communicated with our hands and feet and trusted one another. Katarina and Yolanda and I were a team. Our hours there were five to nine ante meridiem , upside-down work hours in the year of the world (a.m.), Monday through Saturday. That was before we organized to punch the clocks for one another in the basement of Paul U Bergströms, thus enabling an hour or so of extra of sleep, at least one day a week. The supervisor didn't arrive until 8.30 and by then we were all there on duty with our mops in hand, bent over a wet floor. We did it. In a pinch, we could do it again. When I punched out at 9 a.m., I went on to art school and Katarina and Yolanda left for their day jobs.

A year or so later.
up against the Wall
I could finally write
my long awaited
Dear John letter:

Bäste John,
Efter flera års utbildning vid ett av de främsta universiteten i världen, och ett år på en konstskola här i Sverige, har jag nu lärt mig tillräckligt mycket svenska (och om Sverige) för att kunna säga upp mig som Er morgonstäderska.
vänliga hälsningar
En glad dam

I was pleased to announce my resignation as one of his many cleaning ladies. That was many years and jobs ago, when I could still expect a raise by getting another academic degree warmer and changing jobs. Even though my immigrant status and gender had probably set me back a couple of decades, compared to my Swedish mates, there was some strange security in knowing that as long as I was physically fit I could always push a broom.

Some four decades later, four flights up, on my corner balcony, I suddenly realized that I was still pushing the broom, and that maybe it was high time to ride it instead, now that I'm broken in here. What I did last night was to use my broom to knock on the pipes, hit the letter keys and space bars and alarm clock, and ring all the doorbells for neighbors to hear the sweeping sound it makes: I REFUSE to WASTE more time. I am replacing myself now with an older woman who wishes to age gracefully, dependent upon my neighbors for support. "Why can't we defy fire department and insurance company rules, and take a few risks needed to make this place fit for human life. Set up a bookshelf and a table by the door, exchange books and magazines and flowers and gingerbread in the empty spaces we share. Mop our own floors." That's what I said at the board meeting of my condominium association last night.
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I am in the software store now, of my godchildren, generations to come or not, listening to the carillons of doctors, lawyers, chimney sweepers, carpenters and candlestick-makers. I wish to be free from all the file pushers and peddlers, and jump off the deep end into the Pirate Bay of legitimate file sharers. Sign me up for the new digital world where I can clap my hands, and tap my feet wherever I go. Watch out, sweeping through, this big bag lady is on the broom.