Nothing Left Over

There is a strong tradition of cleaning in my family. Most likely it started with our Victorian nanny, Miss Rizpah Smith (known to one and all as Moth, because one of the incipient maharajahs she had looked after in India felt that her white hair made her look like a moth). It continued at boarding school, became honed at work parties at the philosophy school, and is now second nature. I have always suspected it is true that cleanliness is next to godliness.

As you have probably gathered, things in my house are neat and orderly. Moth used to come to stay with us when we had grown up, and she always said that looking into my closets made her uncomfortable because they were so tidy. My rejoinder was that she had only herself to blame because I would never have learned this skill without her.

Some people probably find my passion for having everything in its place a little unreasonable, but I simply cannot rest if my apartment or desk is messy. Once my surroundings are in order, my thoughts are sorted out too. Leaving everything ready for its next use means that you do not have to worry about what you have left undone. If you come to visit me, you will never catch me unprepared. I would not dream of going out in the morning without having made my bed. I do not go to sleep at night without washing the supper dishes. If a garment gets stained or torn, I clean or mend it the same day. Readiness is all. I understand that it may be hard for other people to be this organized, and I certainly don’t expect it of them, but I can report that it does wonders for your mind—and perhaps even for your heart.

Neil once told me about a woman he knew who couldn’t face ironing. She used to stash all the wrinkled clothes in the closet, and at one point when she hadn’t ironed for three months, she had to take a running jump at the door to get it closed. This tale sounded apocryphal to me because I simply couldn’t imagine such a situation.

When Adam was a teenager and from time to time I got him to tidy up and clean his room, he would admit (without prompting) that he felt a great deal better afterward and he didn’t even know the principle behind what I had asked him to do. I was never able to understand how he managed to do any homework in his room the way it usually looked. As I get older, it’s so easy to lose track of things that if I do not put them in the right place to begin with, I may never find them again. And even when I do put them in the right place, they seem to walk off sometimes.

In my experience what goes on inside us is reflected on the outside, and vice versa. Perhaps they are two aspects of the same thing. You can either clean up your act in what we think of as the real world and this will clarify what is within, or you can work from the other direction.

Whenever I see a layer of dust on my dining room table or sideboard, I have to take care of it or I will have the distinct impression that the dust will settle into my mind. Still, I do not see this as a chore. I actually feel that I am burnishing my mind each time I clean. When I go to visit my mother and her home is not as pristine as mine, I am concerned not just for her exterior health but for her inner health too. I want her to have as much clarity as possible in her last years. I don’t explain why I am cleaning, but I was really touched on my last visit when my sister-in-law, Valery, came to see us and commented on the lightness she found that hadn’t been there before. We all know how grungy we feel when we enter a room that hasn’t been cleaned for a long time.

Sometimes the way to clear the cobwebs from your mind is to take a brisk walk outside. It has been snowing on and off for the last few days and my body hasn’t felt like volunteering for exercise, but today the sun was bright and the sky blue and I practically danced down the street as I went in search of ink cartridges and dark-chocolate cookies. Now here I am back in front of the screen, and I have the energy to write once more. Even if you can’t go outside, when you find yourself falling asleep over what you are doing or reaching an impasse, get up and do some physical movement. I find that cleaning always does the trick. If I get stuck on this page for too long, I shall go to the hall closet and do a little spring-cleaning. As I hung up my jacket just now, I noticed that fluff was accumulating on the floor between the shoes.

In some ways I see my editorial function as one of cleaning and polishing. I am not one of those editors who dream up ideas for books. I take the Michelangelo approach: If you offer me a block of Carrara marble (and it does have to be the best quality), then I can see the David within and help the author carve his or her vision out of the block of stone. I had one author who used to say that I edited his mind rather than his manuscript. Obviously, if you can do your editorial work there, there is less to do with a pencil later.

When I was growing up my mother would often say, “Don’t throw away dirty water until you have clean,” and I believed her. I don’t know where this maxim came from, but recently I started thinking about it and realized that it doesn’t make any sense. As long as your basin is full of dirty water, there is nowhere to put clean water, and there is also little chance that anyone will offer you any. While you are holding on to one object, your hands are not free to accept something else. While you have one idea firmly in place, it is impossible to entertain another.

Perhaps it is the inclination to have everything ready and available that enables me to be prompt for appointments. There is nothing dragging me back or holding me down. I am not running behind as so many people seem to be. In fact, I have an annoying habit of arriving early no matter how late I start off. I really do try to be late but I have rarely succeeded, and on the few occasions when circumstances like the traffic conspire against me, I do not worry because I know in my heart that if I am going to be late, other people will be even later.

I used to get upset when someone I was meeting for lunch was late at the restaurant, particularly if the wait lasted more than fifteen minutes. But eventually I realized that this hiatus was a gift. I was already in place, and there was nothing else to do but rest. For once, I didn’t have to go anywhere or do anything. When the other person finally turns up, you can be much more gracious about it, whatever his or her excuse, if you see the time alone as a plus rather than a minus.

One of the concepts in Judaism that continues to fascinate me is that of tikkun olam. This expression from the Hebrew root TKN, “to set straight or put in order,” is generally translated as “repair, restoration, or healing of the world,” the idea being that we are here on this earth in order to look after whatever has gone awry or needs mending. But I think of it more in terms of our being caretakers. The word caretaker is used to describe someone who is responsible either for a sick or elderly person or for a building. In reality, the word has a much richer meaning. A caretaker is someone who takes care, who is careful, i.e. full of care. This puts a different complexion on the concept. It implies that our function is to care for one another and the whole of creation however we can. It means that our attention naturally goes out to other people and things wherever it is needed. There is a quality of devotion about it that doesn’t normally come to mind when we say “caretaker.”

Lately, I have been rereading the first five books of the Bible, studying both the English and the Hebrew texts, which is very rewarding. Each time, one comes across something new. What I discovered this time was that the Hebrew verb shamar, meaning “watch over, care for, protect, give attention to, observe, and revere,” is used in (at least) four significant places. The first time is in Genesis 2:15 when God tells Adam to “till and care for” the Garden of Eden. In Genesis 4:9 comes Cain’s famous response, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” It turns out that “keeper,” as it is usually translated, is not very accurate. The word really means “caretaker” or “someone who watches out for you.” Then, in Genesis 28:15, in the passage about Jacob’s dream, God says, “Remember, I am with you: I will protect you wherever you go …” And I had not realized that in the second rendering of the Ten Commandments, in Deuteronomy 5:12, the instruction regarding the Sabbath day is to “observe” it rather than “remember” it, as it says in Exodus. So it turns out that caring is what we are here in this world to do for one another. God cares for, protects, and watches over us, and, in the same way, we do this for others in whatever way we can.

On my bedroom wall is a calligraphed and illuminated quote by the Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa, which says:

Generosity is giving whatever you have. It is not for you to make judgments; it is for the recipients to make the gesture of receiving. If the recipients are not ready for your generosity, they will not receive it.

This ties in closely with the Jewish practice of tzedakah, which is often translated as “charity,” but, in fact, the two concepts are different. Charity, as described in the New Testament, is choosing to give to someone when you perceive his or her need. It has an optional quality about it. Tzedakah, on the other hand, comes from the root meaning “wise” or “just.” In Judaism, tzedakah is a requirement. (I believe that taking care of the poor is also one of the Five Pillars of Islam.) What this means is that if you are on the subway and a scruffy man asks you for a handout, you don’t size him up and decide whether or not he deserves it. You simply give. There is no way you can know for certain what his situation is, and the rabbis taught that it is better to err on the side of generosity. God forbid you should refuse the one person in dire need.

This is not easy to put into practice. When I first learned about tzedakah, I was very moved and for the next week or so, I was able to just give, whoever asked me. But gradually this goodwill dissipated, and I started to judge people again. It was particularly hard when I went to India where women clutching babies drag on your arm, beseeching you for money, and when you relent and give them some, they ask for more. They figure that if you have already given something, you undoubtedly have more available and the next person may not. Also, in their culture, there is more merit in giving than receiving, so the way they see it, they are doing you a favor by allowing you to give again. This is hard for Westerners to grasp, particularly since no thanks are ever forthcoming. I didn’t mind giving, but I wasn’t able to resist feeling entitled to some kind of acknowledgment!

Of course, this is related to the idea that none of us really owns anything. Everything currently in my possession is just passing through my hands. I have been entrusted with it, or, to put it another way, I am its caretaker. Through the luck of the draw I was born into more favorable circumstances than millions of other people. I have never gone hungry or been without a roof over my head. Trungpa said, “Generosity is giving whatever you have.” No equivocation there.

Here is one of my favorite stories about the Buddha. He was teaching one day, when someone started to heckle him. The Buddha stopped and asked the man: “If someone offers you a wonderful gift and you refuse it, to whom does the gift belong?” The man answered that it would remain the property of the giver. “Even so,” said the Buddha, “I do not accept your abuse.” It is said that the man’s attitude was so changed that he became one of the Buddha’s disciples.

This morning I admitted to myself that I was unlikely to ever again wear the pinafore dress I wore last Thursday. For some reason, although I was delighted with it when I bought it, it no longer suits me, and I know that it will lurk in my closet forevermore unless I Take Steps. So I extracted it and looked along the rack to see what else might join it on a trip to what my tax accountant calls “the Slavation Army” (What does he know that I don’t?). I managed to put together a good shopping bagful of clothes that others might like. It is amazing how often you can do this and still find garments you are no longer attached to. But the miraculous effect of this surrendering and clearing out is the space that it creates. It is the space in and around things that is so wondrous. We all know that when our closets and drawers are crammed full, we cannot tell what is in them. When there is sufficient space to see what is there, we have a real choice about what to wear because we are able to get a clear view.

It is also healthy to relinquish larger items. Once I had both a child and a job, I started using the piano as a receptacle for manuscripts rather than for making music, and it sat there month after month like a reproach. One day a colleague came to dinner and admired it. I asked her if she played, and she said that she would if she had a piano. So I offered it to her. I explained that having something that large in the corner of the living room not being put to the use for which it was intended was a minus for me rather than a plus. She would be doing me a big favor by taking it away and putting it to good use. I also gave her the piano stool and my music.

What I sense is happening during this period of my life is a gradual draining or spring-cleaning of my mind, as I let go of one thing after another, whether it is attachment to particular garments or long-held ideas about people or things. In their stead, I find that from time to time an idea or a small revelation will drift in. It arrives on its own and doesn’t come confused with a multitude of other stuff, so I am able to appreciate it fully and decide how to make the best use of it.

The important lesson here is to see what you can leave out of your life. If you consider music, for example, it is obvious that the space between the notes makes all the difference—both how wide the interval is and how long the silence lasts. It isn’t any different with your clothes and, indeed, all your possessions. There is an inordinate amount of freedom to be found in giving things up.