Before we went on holiday, my mum would spend time trying to leave the house clean and tidy. She did this right down to the day of our departure and even in the last few minutes. I could not understand it: I reasoned that when we returned everything would be just as it had been, if a bit dustier; cleaning wasn’t necessary in order for us to go away.  I remember urging her, on one occasion, to cease the wiping of bathroom sink or hoovering of stairs, aware that dad had packed the car and was, perhaps, sitting, waiting, tapping his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel. I was then old enough to appreciate that mum and dad each had their own feelings and notice the dynamic between them which was independent of their role as my parents.  A mixture of … what? anxiety and arrogance? would lead me to try to broker between the two.   I don’t actually know whether my dad was irritated by mum’s wanting to clean the house as she left it, but I imagined he might be. 

I find I have inherited her trait.  Unable to ask her about it now, I can only consider it as a peculiarity to myself.  Why do I find myself doing this?  submitting to the increasingly strong impulse to finish all the ironing, sort the pile of papers on the kitchen table, polish the mirror. 

Part of it is anticipation, and preparing a reward for what a colleague would call ‘my future self’.  Coming back from holiday to a clean, tidy house is a welcoming pleasure. I remember returning home shortly after we started employing a cleaner:  at the end of the working day I opened the door, anticipating and then experiencing entry into a house that was clean and fresh.  The gift of it, the grace of it, the relief I felt was powerful and benign. But that’s not just it, by any means.

Of course there is a level at which it is about death.  Isn’t everything?  What if, just what if, this is the last time I will leave the house?  After the accident, after the tragedy, others will enter and gain their last impression of me.  Putting one’s house in order is commendable preparation, a recognition of mortality which is a courtesy to others.  Leave the house clean and tidy: it’s maybe the same superstitious pride that dictates the wearing of clean knickers in case you get run over and taken to hospital.

Also. I realise I am anticipating that moment of return which allows me to glimpse my home as if through another’s eyes.  When it shows as fleetingly unfamiliar.  ‘If I were a visitor’, I half-imagine, ‘if I did not know this person, what impression would I gain?’  It is the house equivalent of catching sight of oneself unexpectedly, in a mirror across a room, even a strange double reflection so that we see ourselves from an odd angle.  We are granted a viewpoint which is alien, exterior.  There can be a moment when we behold a stranger, before recognition occurs.

I long for the impression to be positive.  I want, as it were, to think I would like myself if I met me. 

Who lives here? What can I discern about this person? What are they displaying, what are they revealing?  What are they trying to say to the person on the threshold?

If we stretch out the fleeting moment, rubato, poise in the intake of breath before the beat, then we can glimpse the room before the objects therein,  the table or chairs or bookcases, before they yet know they are being looked at.  This is a view only gained from doorways, when dust mote impressions float in the air and catch the light.  The space is like a still pool, the sediment settled, the water clear and reflective, we can see both surface and depth –  the moment in the pond before the dog enters and starts to swim, raising silty clouds with every paw paddle, taking possession, transforming the scene to delightful, purposeful dogginess.  We will, at the end of the moment, enter the room and dominate it just as naturally. 

But before, before the about-to-be-now of my return, before I resume possession and inhabitancy

what do I perceive? How do I respond? 

What feelings, what words form in my mind? 

Who lives here?