I realized the other day that I almost never hear anyone talk about dusting.
Astonishing, really, when you think about it. People tend to have so much stuff in their houses, in their spaces, in their lives, and so much of it is, let’s face it, stuff that we don’t use all that often. I try to be reasonably tidy and efficient about the material objects in my household, but even I end up with stacks of things — mostly papers, notes, mail, and books — that aren’t being used but also haven’t been put away properly. And they do get dusty, given enough time, for values of “enough” that equal “fairly little, actually.”
That’s not to mention all the things that seem to get dusty the instant they enter your house. Any sort of cable that dangles in loops or lies on a shelf or the floor is, I think, required by law to collect its weight in dust rhinos and cat-hair tumbleweeds within a week. Bottom bookshelves are covered by a similar statute. And any piece of electronic equipment that is not a laptop computer will attract dust to its surface instantaneously.
This all happens much faster if you have forced-air heating, or central air conditioning. I do not care for forced-air heating and am only grudgingly accepting of central air con. Mostly I do not like them because their primary purpose appears to me to be to dispense temperature-controlled air from floor level, moving whatever dirt and dust and shed bits of one’s epidermis and jettisoned hairs and tiny particles of cat litter and God knows what else from floor level up into the air. I am sure that no one will cop to it, but I am equally sure that this entire system was designed to ensure a reliable and consistent deposition of dust on all surfaces. I further note that I feel that entropy does a perfectly adequate job of dust distribution and does not in fact need the help. Like a cat, I enjoy a good old-fashioned steam radiator. Much better than holes in the floor that issue conveniently pre-warmed dust.
I dust most of my house every couple of weeks. Sometimes I do it every week, particularly during pollen season. I can’t be the only person who does. But I feel like I am. No one talks about dusting, at least no one I know. I occasionally see commercials on the TVs at the gym for things like disposable electrostatic dusters, or spritzes and sprays for dusting with. But while my friends will commisserate with me and with each other about laundry — a perennially popular whinge — and about organizational troubles such as closet-cleaning or filing, no one talks about dusting, not even to gripe about it. I find this odd, and a little disconcerting.
I am fond of dusting. I like to get a clean old sock, or some pieces of old, well-worn, soft, laundered T-shirt, and run them over every surface in the house. It’s got a bit of an air of reunion about it, dusting does, as I pick up all the various small bits from the mantel in the living room or the top of the chest of drawers just outside the bathroom door and renew my acquaintance with each one. Sometimes when I dust the bookshelves I find books I’ve been looking for recently, but for some reason couldn’t spot when I was trying to find them, only when I wasn’t. Now and then I find things I forgotten about completely, and when that isn’t annoying as hell, it can be delightful.
Dusting is satisfyingly instant in its reward. Dust something and it is, with almost embarrassing ease, palpably clean. It may not stay that way forever, but it does stay that way long enough that you can dust a room, then stand with your hands on your hips and survey your domain with pleasure, serenely confident that whatever else could be said of your parlor (or wherever), it cannot be said to be dusty.
Dustcloths, too, are satisfying. You can see what you’ve done. I’ve always thought that those nose-pore-cleaning peel-off sticking plasters must have been invented by someone who really understood the visceral reward of looking at your dust-cloth to see just how mightily you have cleaned something. (The nose-pore-cleaning strips are never, ever as good as dust-rags, though. I think it’s a problem of scale. Also they tend to leave bits of crusty adhesive on your skin.) Just having a room look tidier or glossier or neater isn’t really enough. Lord Chief Justice Hewart understood: “Not only must Justice be done; it must also be seen to be done.” The beauty of the dust-rag is in its evidence.
I cannot be the only one who thinks so.
