Completely Floored

A Floor Like This

I like this floor because it has a face, and if I didn’t know it was a floor, I would think it was a painting. I could look at it for hours and be happy. There are stories in this floor, layers of them, limited only by my imagination. Workboots walked here, also bedroom slippers and ballet shoes, sturdy oxfords, sneakers, stilettos, galoshes, bare feet. Perhaps someone made love on this floor, danced on it, died on it.

With a floor like this, everything in the house behaves differently. Pictures feel free to swing on fraying cords. Chairs rearrange themselves in snug corners. Pots and pans fly out of airless cupboards and announce themselves to walls. Walls want to be in a state of gradual undress, a shred of wallpaper here, a glimpse of lathe there, plaster cracking in spidery patterns.

A floor like this permits a delicious abandon. You can track in mud or snow or have stones caught in your boot soles. You can spill vinegar, black coffee, spaghetti sauce. You can waltz all night in pointy shoes, pile the books. move the chairs, play the music loud. A floor like this thumbs its nose at vacuum cleaners and mops. It swallows up cat hair, dust bunnies, seed husks from the canary cage.

It is not coddled (no mandatory shoes at the door). It is not privileged and polished to within an inch of its life. It is not scary and perfect. It is, above all, humble, and it’s in this humility, this willingness to be of use, that we find its originality, depth, beauty.

My sisters say they want to be used up at the end of their lives. Wrinkles, grandchildren, hearts that have lived and lost and loved, bundles of memories, some sweet, some raw, the willingness to be helpful whenever they can, my sisters live this. I have a note here saying that if you have a gift or talent, don’t hoard it, spend it extravagantly. If you’re a poet, write. A painter, paint. A teacher, teach. A runner, run. If your gift is compassion, kindness, patience, tolerance, so much the better, since every day offers opportunities for its expression.

Your gift, like this floor, gets better, stronger, richer with use. And somehow, some way, the world does too.