Cleaning Up Messes
It’s the new year and I like to start with my messes cleaned up. Heavy winter rains carpeted oak leaves and tiny branches on the deck outside our living room in Petaluma. The acorns are surprising when you step on them in the dark. It’s better to have a clean deck when running up and down to my studio preparing for the flood of work the new year brings, so I have a priority of sweeping up after rains.
As I danced in the cool morning imagining sweeping being a form of maintenance Tai Chi, I thought about all the social messes that need to be cleaned up this year. A lot of promises have been made during the campaigns having to do with this or that policy or agency that is a “mess.” I wondered if people who don’t have to clean up after themselves really know very much about cleaning up messes. What happens when some try to get rid of others they consider “messy?”
Sweeping the deck seems relatively simple—or is it? Here are just a few of the things you have to think about:
1. Over-sweeping makes some of the oak leaves dig into the wood and the cracks.
2. Moving too quickly can result in slipping on the rain-slicked wood.
3. Getting oak leaves out from under big ceramic pots requires crouching down and slowly poking the leaves out from their hiding places. Even so, some remain.
4. A good sweep requires two or three passes even when the technique is masterful.
I wonder if the lessons from simple deck cleaning are understood by people who try to clean up social messes. What constitutes over-sweeping? What special operations are needed to get leaves out from the cracks under pots? What constitute pots? Are these the special places in budgets where things hide? Do people who implement sweeps really understand how many times you have to do it in order to get good results? Who slips and breaks bones when things are done too quickly? Did Congress really think they could get away with not sweeping themselves ethically now and then?
“This is what our democracy stands for, the smooth transition of power.” Obama’s words came in the deliberate, stately cadence that we’ve all heard so many times over the last eight years. “I’ve asked my team to do everything possible to ensure that the new President elect can hit the ground running” he said. “George Bush’s team did that for us when we took office.”
