Spring cleaning

Netnet Camomot

HOLY Week would have been the best time to let go of things.

If spring cleaning was the least of your priorities that week because the beach was too tempting to resist, then you may look forward to another long vacation to let go of things.

Mama visited our sis-in-law through a dream: Mama looking so happy while having a garage sale outside the house we used to call home. We all figured she has given us a go signal to sell or give away the cabinets, beds, clothes, books, old gadgets, and all the other things we left in the bodega. But then I want to build a house first and consider which of these things we could use for the new place before having that garage sale. Hmmm. Dream on.

But isn’t this the Law of Attraction? You shout it to the whole world–Own a new house!–and the world responds. I did the same thing for my weight-loss goal, and the world has responded.

See? Even for the world, the word is “respond.” Which is the advice of our favorite team building facilitator Tina Concepcion, that we should respond and not react.

Our Rotary Club has been having mini-team building sessions with her lately. The first one was on August 31 last year but that was the major kind. After our many months of trying to build a team as a Club, here’s Tina again to help us through the difference between respond and react, and all the other attitudes, perspectives, views, etc. that may have significant effects on the Club’s existence.

We always come out of these sessions refreshed. Like having a shower after being exposed to dust and humidity. Which I guess should be the same feeling one gets after going through Holy Week rituals.

If sleeping, reading, eating, er, fasting are your own personal rituals, then let them be. There are no rules, as long as you’re not literally crucifying anyone on the Cross or any torture of the same kind.

Holy Week was supposed to be a good excuse to do nothing at all. But the workaholic would of course find an excuse to work anyway, for that’s the sked he’s used to. He can’t sit still unless there’s a Bluetooth headset eternally attached to his ear.

There are people who do have to work because, unlike you and me, it’s during the holidays that their job demands them to be present or else. Think of the apostle whose feet Jesus has to wash. The Easter Bunny for Easter. And the political candidate who believes being crucified on the Cross is the best way to earn the Pinoy Catholic’s vote.

And then, there’s the Rotary Club that had a block screening for “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” on Black Saturday. The US makes the rules when it comes to Hollywood movie premieres and skeds. Pinas simply follows.

For Holy Thursday and Good Friday, though, it was either sleep and stare, or start the spring cleaning already right inside the bedroom where the clutter had somehow swallowed the pink stapler.

Piles of unread newspapers, magazines and files are on the center table, along with backpacks, tote bags, and newspaper clippings. That mountain of clutter alone is enough to make the “piler” switch to sleep and stare.

You’re lucky if you’re now sporting a tan–that means you had the grandest vacation of all. Or you may pretend it was grand and all that, don’t mention the mad rush in and out of boats, the overpopulated beach where you could hardly see your own shadow, and the first-aid urine for the red itchy skin caused by an unidentified swimming object.

It’s back to reality, back to work, and back to eating. No more fasting. Yehey!