What would be the last thing on your mind while enjoying your holidays on the Côte d’Azur? Let me guess. Perhaps household dust?
I return from a vacation. I have left my home impeccably clean. Konmari organized and super clean. I open the door. Happy to be home. Well, as happy as one can be, still dreaming of the turquoise Mediterranean Sea and the heavenly French Cuisine. I step into the foyer. Put the suitcase on the floor. There it is. The fluff. The gigantic fluff. The Fluffy Mountains of Household Dust.
Dust, the underestimated phenomenon. Not well seen. When it is present, you want it gone. And it is always present. Why on earth did God create household dust? It is completely useless. It has no functional value whatsoever, nor any positive aesthetic qualities. Or would you know about a situation when dust is needed or appreciated? “Three ounces of dust, please”, or: “Wouldn’t this be a fabulous place if only they had more dust around?” See? Nobody wants dust. No one. Except for dust mites. Dust mites love dust. But who on earth wants dust mites? … Stardust. How poetic. But honestly speaking: Would YOU want stardust in your Cesar’s salad? I don’t. I want my salad free of dust, no matter where it originates from.
Let me share the following train of thought with you: Just like household dust, sand – think of Côte d’Azur beaches – consists of tiny particles. They are very light. So when it’s windy, they fly. Into your eyes, or into your delicious Bouillabaisse (a spicy, rich fish soup). This is why we prefer sand in its civilized version, nicely arranged in the shape of a beach. On such a beach, we relax. We truly enjoy relaxing in the warm sand that supports our vacationing bodies. No one would think of vacuuming all that sand away, or wiping it off the beach. – On the other hand, just because something super tiny is spreading out on any given surface, it isn’t necessarily a great thing. Or would you enjoy relaxing on a gigantic fluff of household dust on your living room floor?
Where does all this dust come from? We used to wipe off dust long before we invented the i-phone. Household dust, the preschool for wiping the i-phone? – No chance to escape from it. It only takes one tiny particle, one attracts the next, they instantly form a family, one moment later a community, and then: the United Nation of Fluff. Can’t handle solitude, those gregarious bastards. – There is no way to wash your salad thoroughly enough to prevent you from consuming dust. We are made of dust. Planet Earth: one huge fluff of dust.
Enough dust drama. Let us change to a far more positive subject. For example: SAFETY. Don’t you love the presence of safety? A “safety net” provides us with a good, warm feeling. We appreciate safety wherever we go. So, we invented insurance contracts, safety belts, airbags and so on. There is a whole safety industry. Safety is fabulous. It creates jobs. Yes, it is only human to wish for safety. We want to count on someone or something dependable that will always be on our side and never abandon us, no matter what. We want this lovely, bombproof, everlasting reliability factor in our lives.
Bingo, folks. THAT is dust.
Step #17 = RELAX, NO MATTER WHAT
© Beate Brigid Schilcher 2024-01-13