When I don’t know what to do, I get down on my knees and wash the baseboards.

It’s a mindless, thankless task. Does anyone notice when your baseboards are clean? Most people only scrutinize dirty baseboards. And, let’s be honest, nobody’s coming here to see them anyway.

Crawl, wipe. Crawl, wipe.

Conscious thoughts begin to slough off. Time and circumstances melt away until it’s just the wall, the floor, and my body on auto-pilot. It becomes a meditation. I incorporate washing the wall. I rise, stand on tiptoe, reach for the sky, spread my arms open wide. Working my way down, I fold into myself until I’m back on my knees. I carefully wipe the floor in the joint where a mop doesn’t quite reach.

Crawl, stand, reach, fold, kneel, crawl again. I repeat the prostrations of a neat freak as a housekeeping vinyasa. The wall is solid. The floor is solid. In the space where they meet, I can let go without falling. When I’m finished my body is sore, but my mind has rested.

How can we all be safe and secure? Crawl, wipe.

Nearly all my significant relationships ended this year. I’m still observing every possible pandemic precaution. Nothing about my life is “back to normal.” I don’t even hope for that anymore; lately I spend most of my hope on other people’s problems.

I’m strangely living my best days right now. It seems insensitive to speak of happiness in the midst of all this suffering and collective grief. Nobody fighting a tough battle wants to hear about someone else’s good fortune.

Besides, the reasons for my ups and downs are simple and mundane. I rarely have actual news to share. My complaints seem insignificant. Every day is roughly the same. But I’m grateful for these days, because they are mine.

How can I be a positive force in this negative world? Crawl, wipe.

I still have daily moments of awe that I’m here in Los Angeles. I drive down the road beaming. I devour the daily newspaper. I silently weep when I see the skyline through a window. I sit in my backyard staring at the moon in a cloudless indigo sky. She’s never looked so beautiful. Sometimes I feel adrift and lonely, but I’ve never been so content.

I think about everything it took to get here and feel a secret sense of pride in myself that is wholly unfamiliar. I did something undeniably good for myself. I love this city so much more than I even imagined I would. For the first time ever, I feel at home somewhere. And “somewhere” happens to be the most magical, fabulous, eccentric, outrageous city in the world. People here talk about taking vacations and I wonder how they can bear to leave. In my mind, I walk around screaming, “I live here!” <waving my hands and arms in frenzied amazement like Kermit the Frog> “Every day!”

How can I revive wonder and excitement for others? Crawl, wipe.

Also right now there’s a noisy cricket living in my bathroom exhaust fan. I feel like the only thing I’m ever (sometimes) appreciated for is going to work. Most of what this amazing city has to offer feels off-limits to me because I won’t risk getting COVID. And all of this seems trivial and selfish to think about while people I care about are really struggling in tangible, immediate ways.

One of the hard lessons I learned this year is that there are some things I can’t fix. It doesn’t matter how much I want to, or what lengths I would go to, sometimes it just isn’t possible. I ache to make things better but there’s not always a part for me to play or an action for me to take. Sometimes all I can do is be here, be dependable, wash the baseboards.

How can I soften all the sharp edges? Crawl, wipe.

When I need to just let go, I wear Lostmarc’h Ael-Mat. It’s simple and comforting; a gentle presence that asks for nothing. It smells like chamomile, gorse, orange blossoms, and jasmine. It’s integrated and airy, the smell of flowers carried on a summer breeze.

Ael-Mat used to remind me of hiking and camping along the Central California coast. Now I see it as an allegory of my beloved new city. Ael-Mat is not a well-mannered, tidy garden. It’s sprawling and wild, colorful, chaotic, all things growing and thriving in the places where they found ground and put down roots. Flowers and leaves on slender stalks, woody branches, and tangled vines, everything always reaching for the sun.

How can I illuminate the darkness? Crawl, wipe.

I don’t even remember when I started wearing Ael-Mat, but it was more than ten years ago. The perfumer is Amelie Bourgeois, who later made perfumes like Le Mat for Mendittorosa and Rouge Smoking for BDK. This is my last of several bottles. Given the chance, I would buy it again.

Ael-Mat isn’t an extraordinarily impressive work of perfumery or the most beautiful perfume I own. It’s not thrilling or thought-provoking, it’s just comfortable. Wearing Ael-Mat gives me hours of serenity, regardless of my underlying mood. Ael-Mat is not your most fascinating or stylish or well-connected friend; Ael-Mat is the friend who always answers your calls and texts. The one who would show up faithfully to keep you company while you wash the baseboards.

Where can I put all this love that I’m holding?

Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you
now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live
everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you
will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet