I Wasn't Always a Dirty Girl

Damn. I just licked my fingers.

Oh god, and I didn’t wash my hands when I came home, because I was too busy hunkering down to finish the work I’d started before I left. Now I probably have COVID. Remember when we only worried about germs and not a deadly virus? Oh, and I touched so many things on my errands today! Damn! That one little flick of the tongue to the tip of my fingers, fingers trying to separate two pieces of blank paper so that I could write notes on one. And now, I’m already feeling queasy.

Notes? Now I can’t even remember what I was going to jot down. Was it a story idea? I think it was, maybe. A story of my childhood, decades before licking fingers could be fatal but it could earn me a hard rap across my knuckles. Licking fingers was rude, impolite, a disgusting habit. Even when used as a cleaning or page-turning tool. And I read a lot, so I turned a lot of pages.

“Dirty girl,” I’d hear. “You’re such a filthy little girl.”

Now I knew that being a dirty girl wasn’t a good thing, because I’d been told so many times. I wasn’t even allowed to engage in the childhood joy of mud pie manufacture.

“We don’t make mud pies,” I was told.

“But the other kids—the kids next door and down the road—they make mud pies, and their moms let them use tin pie plates!”

“No. I don’t care what other kids and mothers do. You're not going to. That’s just dirty. Do you want to be a dirty girl?”

Folks around at the time probably wondered why the kid who lived on the corner was always spotless. Well, here's why: a) my mom wouldn't put me outside to play unless I was shiny-cheeked clean, and b) once I was outside I wasn't allowed to touch anything dirty or even sit down. Her zest for cleanliness was daunting, and I took her words to heart. So there I stood, on our front lawn, frozen in place...white shoes, white frilly shorts, white sun bonnet. I fucking gleamed.

My mother constantly reminded me that cleanliness was next to godliness, which I took to pondering at great length during times when I really wished I was up to my elbows in a mucky pond. I dreamed of detergent boxes on a grocery shelf; first up, CLEAN, then look, beside it is a box of GODLY. New and improved! Cleaner than clean! That was the only way I could imagine that cleanliness was next to godliness. And what was godliness, anyway? I didn’t aspire to be godly—that sounded like too much responsibility for a little kid. I didn’t even care that much about being clean.

Secretly, I desperately wanted to be a dirty girl. Dirty girls had fun, they rolled around and baked in the mud. To me, nothing was more natural and wholesome than connecting with the earth that I walked on. During the rare occasions when I wasn’t watched over like a kettle that wouldn’t come to boil, I’d lie on my back—arms and legs stretched out into a star position, fingers and toes reaching as far as they could. Freshly mown lawn was the best because I could inhale the green-scented clippings and grassy oils. How absolutely divine!

So when I grew up I became a dirty girl. I work out in the garden all summer and I don’t care about soil-caked knees and grimy smears across my cheek. As a 50-something, I worked in road construction and came home filthy and smelling like asphalt every day. I might not make mud pies, but I dig through garden soil with my bare hands. I have no qualms about picking up earthworms to gently move them to safer ground. All that icky, dirty stuff. Yes, I still revel in the dirt of a hot summer day, and I love witnessing the handwashing water change color from muddy brown to clear. Dirt signals to me that it was a good day.

I love being a dirty girl.

But COVID has made me rethink cleanliness. I probably do wash my hands more than I used to. Crazy how something as seemingly benign as licking one’s fingertips can strike fear into us now. Although I’ll never make it to godliness, and I still don’t aspire to get there, I concede that handwashing is a good habit to maintain. Even when the water doesn’t change color.