public diary: sunday 16 october
Last night, he cleaned the kitchen. Really cleaned it. Residue accumulates under the weight of unforeseen activities. Coffee stains in the sink. Newspapers piling up. The stove circled with various aftermaths of harried cooking. Items out of place are now in place.
Cleaning is a way of hiding, hiding from all sorts of things. His father, he has noted, throws himself into it not just at points but all the time. At first, when his father first started this, when his mother had tipped from struggle to raw incapability, he thought it a gesture as aggressive as it was passive. But it wasn’t. Or it was, but complexly so.
You learn what your father is by acting him out yourself.
The floor is still a mess – maybe tomorrow if there’s time.
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