| The Meaning of Clean
by Faith Shearin
I have been looking for the meaning of clean.
Money is dirty but wealthy people are clean.
Women are dirty but men are clean. Door handles are never clean because
they have been touched a million times
by hands. Virgins and nuns are clean. Mountain air is clean. Babies are clean.
Clean people are better than dirty people.
Clean things sparkle; they are spotless, unsullied, unstained. Untidy people are lazy.
If you clean a tub or an oven you must
get down on your hands and knees as if you are praying. Love is clean
but desire is dirty. Surgery requires
a sterile field. If you have not been arrested your record is clean. Stars are clean
and night is clean and cold. Swearing
is dirty and flies are dirty and mice are so dirty they brought plagues
on their backs. In a neighborhood
the tidy have the right to dislike the untidy. Dust gathers like disapproval. If you
have quit a drink or a drug you are dean.
Sin is unclean but baptism is cleansing. Your parents may ask you to dean your room.
Janitors and maids make very little money
because anyone can clean but nobody wants to. Most houses are cleaned
by women though they themselves
are unclean. If you don't wash your hands you may catch an infection. “The Meaning of Clean” by Faith Shearin from Moving the Piano. Stephen F. Austin University Press © 2011. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)
It's the 88th birthday of writer John McPhee, (books by this author) born in Princeton, New Jersey (1931). He writes for The New Yorker, and his subjects have included canoes, geology, tennis, nuclear energy, the Swiss army, and his family tree. He was rejected by The New Yorker for 10 years before he finally published his first article there. When someone asked him what he writes about, McPhee said, "I'm describing people engaged in their thing, their activity, whatever it is."
It was on this day in 1935 that Thomas Wolfe's novel Of Time and the River (books by this author) (1935) was published. The manuscript for it was once as lengthy as Proust's In Remembrance of Things Past; it was an epic tale composed of multiple volumes. His publisher at Scribner's, Maxwell Perkins, convinced him that it should be edited down to one volume. Wolfe dedicated that completed novel, Of Time and the River (1935), to Maxwell Perkins.
It's the birthday of literary critic Leslie Fiedler, (books by this author) born in Newark, New Jersey (1917). He's best known for his book Love and Death in the American Novel (1960). He believed that the great theme of American literature was the search for identity. He said, "Americans have no real identity. We're all … uprooted people who come from elsewhere." He was one of the first Americans to argue in favor of popular culture and genre fiction, and once said the only writer of the late 20th century who would be remembered was Stephen King. The Oxford English Dictionary credits him with being the first to describe a piece of literature as "postmodernist." He once wrote, "I have, I admit, a low tolerance for detached chronicling and cool analysis." His last book was Tyranny of the Normal: Essays on Bioethics, Theology & Myth (1996). He died in 2003.
It's the birthday of essayist and children's author Kenneth Grahame, (books by this author) born in Edinburgh, Scotland (1859). He is best known for his book The Wind in the Willows (1908), which he composed from bedtime stories he told to his son. He had already published two books of stories for children, but The Wind in the Willows was rejected by publishers because it had talking animals in it. At the time, talking animals were considered too fantastic. Teddy Roosevelt, a fan of Grahame's earlier work, convinced a publisher to take the book. It was huge success, and it continues to sell well, over 100 years later. Grahame was able to retire from his bank job because of the book. He lived for another 25 years, but he never wrote another one.
It's the birthday of the novelist Jeffrey Eugenides, (books by this author) born in Grosse Pointe, Michigan (1960). He got the idea for his first novel, The Virgin Suicides (1993), when his nephew's babysitter mentioned that she and all of her sisters had attempted suicide at least once. The first chapter of the book was published in the Paris Review, which earned him an agent and a book deal within two days of each other. The Virgin Suicides is written in the first-person-plural "we." Middlesex (2002) is told by an intersex person raised as a girl who later lives as a man, written in both the third and first person. Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® | 
