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Let me say I don't mind dirt. If it is my own.
I wrote, quietly, in the the trustee room until meeitng Tara over at the VSC offices. She showed me around, we had lunch, went over paperwork and info, I met more people and generally filled my head to overflow, and then she showed me my temporary studio and my room/apartment.
Both my room in the apartment and studio are waiting on the current writing coordinator to leave and then there will be movement of staff artists taking up places. Let me just say, for now, my studio is in a reclaimed church. I have to take up a temporary space upstairs before I move in permanently in about 9 days. I am pretty excited. It is almost as good as reclaiming a barn.
At first, I was underwhemed by my apartment––it was dirty. There is a possibility I could choose a different space. But it seemed like a jewel in the rough. The person who lived there before me may have had a dog, and didn't clean well. And I think the woman who lives there now, doesn't clean much because she is so into her work, a really amazing artist. Needless to say, after a moment of disconcertment, I realized this was the work of the day. I spent the afternoon vacuuming, sweeping, mopping, using disinfectant and wiping down the kitchen, bathtoom, and my room. Moving furniture.
By 8pm, my bedroom smelled fresh and clean, I had scavenged an extra lamp/ cotton coverlet/rug; the fridge/oven/counters were clean; the bathroom livable. Once the living room is painted white (it is darksih green) it will be really good. Total potential. Cleaning was like driving across the country: necessary to make it my own. Every space just needs to be arranged and filled. Curated.
The apartment is on the third floor of an early 1900s house. Hard wood floors, chipped lineoleum in the bathroom. Narrow winding staircase. Prior residents dripping paint on the floors. Old furniture. One light in the kitchen. I will have to find more lamps. But it has good bones, a blue pie safe next to the stove, the kitchen is bigger than the living room, and now that it is clean, a lovely feeling. Raspy, raw, a little delapidated. My bedroom windows look out at the mountain. I might love it. It might be not just an apartment, but home.
I can envision living there for a year. It is on the way to becoming a space I can make dirty myself. Tomorrow, I will unload my car and begin to fill in the edges, and expand.
dirt·y
ˈdərdē/
adjective
1.covered or marked with an unclean substance; filthy; covered with earth, soil, or dirt
synonyms: soiled, grimy, grubby, mucky, stained, unwashed, greasy,smeared, smeary, spotted, smudged, cloudy, muddy, dusty, sooty; unclean, sullied, impure, tarnished, polluted, contaminated, defiled,foul, unhygienic, unsanitary;
causing a person or environment to become unclean. "a hard, dirty job"
producing considerable radioactive fallout.
not bright, clear, or pure.
concerned with sex; sexually clandestine; in a lewd manner. (indecent, obscene, rude, naughty, vulgar, smutty, coarse, bawdy, suggestive, ribald, racy, salacious, risqué, ,off-color, lewd, pornographic, explicit, X-rated; )
used to emphasize one's disgust. "you dirty rat!" (despicable, vile, low, mean, unworthy)
dishonest; dishonorable. "dirty dealing" (deceitful, unfair, unethical)
(of weather) rough, stormy, and unpleasant.
disagreeable, distasteful, or objectionable but usually necessary (as in achieving a desired result) “hired a thug to do their dirty work”
(of popular music) having a distorted or rasping tone. "Nirvana's dirty guitar sound"
verb
1. make dirty; stain, become soiled (“dirty her nice clean towels”)
synonyms: soil, stain, muddy, blacken, mess up, mark, spatter, bespatter,smudge, smear, splatter;
sully, pollute, foul, defile;
Origin
14th century, Middle English: from Old Norse drit ‘excrement,’ an early sense in English. Dirty emphasizes the presence of dirt more than an emotional reaction to it <a dirty littered street>.
