Anyway it’s ok

I often sweep and wipe it so that someone can see me as a mysophobia. Cleaning itself is a simple labor. This is because I can relieve a lot of stress from making art works.

I attach the scatter hair on the floor to the tape and wipe out the dirt on the rice cooker and up to the toaster. I do not clean large rooms use the workspace but I want to relax in a clean space after work.  

Instead of day-to-day cleaning, I do it today at the bathroom and tomorrow at the sink whenever I have time. Then, I go to the basement laundry room of the condo to wash bedding.

"Hi," welcomed by a woman with a slightly black and fat. She seems to be an immigrant like myself. She asked me "what floor do you clean?" "Huh? 8th floor. How about you?" "The fifth floor. How many times a week?" I have a feeling that she knew I was a cleaning woman. To change the subject, "My name is Soo, are you?" "Amen."

I opened the door to put the garbage in front of the door. A plump woman opened the door next my door at the same time. "Are you cleaning this condo?" she asked me "Yes." "I come twice a week. How about you?" "I clean it almost every day. Nice me you."

Mostly white people inhabit this condo. They go out to work in the morning and came in the evening. The only ones who keep house all day like me are old people. After the white people go to work in the morning, yellow or brown people looks like me come to work to clean or babysit. Early comers seem to be chatting to each other in the lobby to make a time for work.

I am not white, nor graceful in the face and I am at home in broad daylight, far from being uncomfortable to move, so they must think of me as a cleaner. A sunburned my sister like a Tibet woman married a white man and later gave birth to a daughter. The daughter is fortunate to resemble a good-looking husband, but if my sister takes her to the park, “are you a babysitter?” People ask her. “Are you a cleaning lady?” People asked me. The history of the family goes in a strange direction. What a grief!

It makes me shudder to see the daily workers stamping their feet in the cold to get a job on the street. The peddlers who call customers also dimly think of my past life, as if it were not for others. I was not different from them when I was in the early days of immigration.