THE NINJA CLEANING TECHNIQUE

When you decide to help out your grandma by cleaning her house, there are a few things you have to have in mind:

• You will find yourself cleaning a variety of statues of Virgin Mary, Jesuses of all ages, and lots of Saints (it only applies if your grandma is Catholic). It’s no joke, they have a lot of creases and you need to be careful because they are delicate. It’s a restorer’s job performed by somebody whose finest motor skills at work consist of peeling band-aids.

• You will realize that due to the short stature of said grandma, half of the house will be clean and half of the house will remain untouched for years (the dirty part being anywhere above the head and under the knees).

• You have heard the backstory of all of the useless items in the house; therefore it becomes impossible to easily get rid of them.

• You will witness a perfect example of the famous old physics law about the use of space: “Everything fits if you cram it hard enough”.

• Easter altar candles don’t need to be kept for more than 20 years.

Avia has been gone for 3 days. Soon after her departure, when we’ve made sure that she isn’t coming back, my mom (Montse) and I gear up and barge into her house with a mission: “clean and declutter.” It’s not a job for the faint of heart.

You might be asking yourself why we are doing this in the shadows. To answer that, I invite you to spend an afternoon with a Spanish grandma so you can learn that the most offensive and outrageous thing you could ever do (besides telling her “I’m full, thank you”) is to help her clean.

Because this is such a delicate situation, there’s been an unspoken agreement in my family for years: when Avia goes on her girlfriends’ getaway during the summer, my mom and I go and deep clean her house (though my mom’s had to go solo in recent years). When Avia comes back, everything is spick and span and nobody talks about it. It never happened, she was never helped, end of story. Then she starts making baked goods and cooking her special dishes, and she says it’s because she’s missed us and she’s glad to be home.

Meanwhile, Alex and my dad (Jaume) have been working hard at the wood shop. My dad has been a carpenter since he was 14, and Alex has been helping him since Monday. My dad is visibly happy, which is a lot to say about one of the most cynical people I know. They come home tired and smelling like wood, with big smiles on their faces and a lot of inside jokes. I have to admit that it’s a nice and weird feeling to hug Alex at the end of the day and to smell my childhood. Next week I’ll try to join them and take pictures to prove that they are actually working and not just eating gourmet food all day. I’ll have to convince Alex to start his own blog called: “Memories of a woodworker.”

Yesterday, while Alex was slaving over dressers and paella plates, I went hiking with a few friends to the “Alzina Bonica” (The Beautiful Holm Oak), also called the “Alzina del Vent” (The Holm Oak of the Wind). It’s beautiful hike that takes you along a ridge near our house, from where you can see the little towns and mountains in the National Park and it ends where the majestic tree sits. I love this beautiful oak. So peaceful, standing strong through all these years.

After dinner we didn’t schedule any social event. We sat with my favorite kind of sunflower seeds (I missed them so much!) and watched the last episode of Game of Thrones (Y’all. OMG).

The temperatures have dropped today and it’s been chilly and rainy. We need jackets! (It’s been only three summers in Atlanta and I almost forgot that August doesn’t need to be excruciatingly hot). All the windows of the house are opened and the breeze is nice and crisp. Tomorrow we are waking up early to head up north to the Pyrenees. I can’t wait to take y’all there!

#cleaning #home #hike #catalonia #oak #tree