life as a tile floor

The skills required to properly clean a tile floor do not come naturally to everyone.  The first act of simply throwing a bucket of water mixed with a green pine-scented cleanser into the corners of the room is shocking to eyes that have only ever imagined the options of mop or vacuum. Then  the giant squeegee comes out and the whole room must be swiped dry before the water reaches anything it should not touch. And then you do it all again.

The first time I witnessed the act, my roommate Ingie glided around the room in one fluid motion. Like Fred Astaire with a broom she quickly and effortlessly guided the water away from anything it would harm and out to the balcony to wash down the side of the building. Seeing the confidence and ease with which she had completed round one, I had no apprehension about round two and began the process again. But as soon as I playfully emptied the bucket of soapy green-tinted water onto the floor, it did not seem to obey me as it had her. The water ran in all directions and I could not seem to shepherd it as Ingie had. 

Despite my disastrous time of trying to control water on a flat surface, the casualties of my inexperience were low. A beloved blanket would have to be washed and a notepad thrown away. All bearable losses.

Cleaning the floor wasn't the first thing that had tripped me up in my quest to learn how to live in Lebanon. And it certainly wasn't the last. But as I stood on my balcony pushing the last of the water away with a curious amount of rage, dripping with sweat from the labor of the task, my back sore and eyes stinging from the sweat invading them, I realized that this is supposed to be hard. 

In the weeks before cleaning day, I had been ashamed to struggle. Ashamed to be lonely, to be scared, to be unsure. But now I am able to find comfort in the fact that this may well be the hardest thing I ever do. 

Each day is exhausting. Simply going to the post office requires planning, asking for directions, the rehearsing of requests in Arabic and then walking in intense heat to an unknown location. The challenge of each new task seems magnified far beyond the norm. But I know I will settle. Eventually  the traffic in my mind will slow down. 

For each day, when I lay down to go to sleep, exhausted from a day of what seems like simple tasks, my mind slows quicker and quicker. And eventually, all I hear is the traffic in the streets.