Morning Rituals or Random Thoughts While Cleaning the Marble Counters

When I open the store in the morning I go through my  rituals, almost always in the same order (make coffee first, but wait until my chores are done before pouring any) and with a spirit filled with hope for a prosperous day. As we perform our perfunctory duties on a daily basis we tend to play the same tape through our minds at certain points in the process, and as I spray watered-down Murphy's Oil on the Rosso Verona countertop, I am brought back to my days as a student in Rome when, on my morning walk to school,  I would watch the shopkeepers on the Via del Corso as they prepared to open their stores.

Dressed in smocks to protect their stylishly understated clothes, the shopgirls dutifully vacuumed and mopped, the windows were polished.  No Roman would rely on a public service department to maintain the streets and sidewalks, so these were swept with old, straw witch-brooms and scrubbed with soapy water and a brush. Only then could the shopgirls make a quick dash to the bar for their final cappuccino of the morning where they competed for bar space with the businessmen in their summer gabardine suits, they too squeezing in what was probably their second or third espresso before surrendering to the monotony of the office. 

I would walk by and observe them all, never having the courage to enter a bar alone, afraid that my face, my clothes, my lack of Roman attitude would give me away as not One Of Them.  I remember a particular store on the Via di Propaganda before I would turn down Via della Mercede to get to the Dante Alighieri Italian School for Foreigners in Piazza di Firenze.  It was a showroom for Brunschwig & Fils, and had one club chair in the middle of a shiny Black Absolute granite floor, and I often wished that I could be the shopgirl there, watching the world go by while waiting for someone to come in and buy that one chair.

Now, these many years later, I'm happy to polish the countertops and mop the travertine floors at our store; to begin a day so simply gives me the chance to clear my head for the many tasks ahead as well as a sense of accomplishment in having cleansed  our space of the previous day's events.  As I lose myself in the welcome mindlessness of cleaning, sometimes I even pretend I'm working at Brunschwig & Fils.

Link to:Dante Alighieri School of Italian Language
Brunschwig & Fils