I've been quiet here for a while. I've been going through one of those "hibernation" cycles I get three to four times a year when I can't see to output anything: not writing, nor friendship upkeep. I just barely scrape by maintaining my immediate family relationships and work/volunteer requirements.

Usually I hole up at home and read like 4-5 books a week until it goes away. I think I see the end of this long, dark tunnel approaching, and so when I got a cleaning service ad in the mail today that read "life is too short to clean your own home" it made me irate and I felt the inkling to actually say something about it.

Why? do you ask. Let me tell you. In this economic and global natural climate, that sentiment is so far from where every human being on this planet needs to be.

What a waste of resources to have people going around from house to house cleaning instead of the people who live there.

Yes, life is short. But it's WAY too short not to be aware of your surroundings and how they are maintained. Don't get me wrong. I HATE cleaning. But I also hate eating healthy and excercising and writing and reading the same book over and over again to my children.

And I don't think anybody would send me an advertisement saying "life is too short to read to your children" or "life is too short to heat spinach."

Why do we think it is natural or right to abrogate responsibility for our basic needs to other people? We are responsible for our footprint on this earth. And while I don't like cleaning, I do feel that it keeps me in touch with my own space when I do it. I feel a sense of accomplishment and a kind of realigning of myself when I do it. There is nothing more important than teaching this to our children.

In Japan, the children are required to spend part of each day cleaning their school. And boy howdy is it boring and annoying and yucky, but boy howdy do they treat their faciilities differently than US grade school children.

Each one of should shoulder responsibility for ourselves in this world, and it is people who shoulder responsibility who can truly understand how the world works.

We can't divorce ourselves from the reality of day to day life and truly expect to understand the world.

Life is too short not to clean your house.