The Window Cleaner in Me

Spring snuck up fast, but my body told me this was happening for some time now as we rolled into this new window cleaning season. My body talks to me. The window cleaner in me talks to the window cleaner that is me, body and mind, connected and communicating to each other to make sure both entities work to balance me, keep me going, going strong, and maintain health and attention to repair.

My hands tell me they want the care they need from the abuse the window cleaner part of me gives them, they speak loudly, I listen to them, I am the care to satisfy their needs. It is odd in window cleaning we used waxes in the old days. Polishing and waxing was the way for many, still is to this day, like it or not. Our hands when we waxed were very soft, coated, protected, sealed. To this day, I still have a wedge of Bees Wax on hand, for many purposes, even if only to get stack ladders, wood or aluminum, separated quickly, especially when the climate finds those materials expanding and contracting. Wax, go figure? 

Credit: Jeff Scott

Repairing my hands after extensive fieldwork, after working in the shop fixing and modifying, builds and such, repairing them is a need. Warm/hot wax, layered, wrapped, left to set, exactly what my hands asked me for, a willing compromise!

Other parts of my body have been telling me what to do. In the beginning, it told me to get started with the conditioning, to get the trigger muscles going, ready. It then told me to get my core back to the center, any off-balance from the winter dormancy corrected during this period of conditioning for the coming season, the rush of the window cleaners spring. 

The squats and crunches, the push-ups and the pull-ups, the stretching, then the deeper stretching, the awakening of the body, readying it properly, to make sure it does not stress when I ask of it a most precious thing, the ability to go, go, go when that spring brings us back to a full pace!

Go figure my gut wants to chime in and tell me things.

It starts to speak, and I listen, change, and make the corrections, all about that core. The diet slowly changes, adjusts for low energy periods, constantly adapting for high energy periods, and always manipulates to get several needs fulfilled—energy and nutrition, feeding the body, fueling the body. 

This conditioning turns into the physical work-out that becomes our lives for the season. The ladders carried and climbed, positioned and re-positioned, and the water-fed poles raised into the sun.  That moment of blindness as we re-adjust our view and triggering every muscle in our body to tense up as we are momentarily blinded.  Already knowing this, the pole is so close to a resting place the anxiety of dropping it no longer haunting the user who has learned to anticipate that moment in their window cleaning time. During this period that weight bench, those bench presses, the squats, the core, keeps the body strong, keeps the body going, enduring, producing, then, after that spring dash into the summer heat, the summer sun, the window cleaner starts to spy a moment to relax the body, give it a break, a rest, fall is not far off, the second wave, the rush to get it all cleaned up for the coming winter, pack it all up, the next deep rest period for some window cleaners, a desired break for many. 

At each phase of the window cleaner season, the physical being talks to us, lets us know what it wants, what it needs, the window cleaner in and out of me must keep this line of communication open at all times, together we will reach our goals. We must also learn when to take a break and rest/repair the physical window cleaner inside when to ease up, release the stress and tension locked in, massage therapy, hot stones, hot wax, yoga/ballet stretch, relax, repair, re-condition, maintain. 

As I age at this in the field over many years, my body talks to me more and more. The more I listen and learn from these talks, the more I realize how much more my body has and is willing to give to me, especially as I age doing this. I must keep up a consistent diet, much like a Ballerina must adhere to a rigorous diet to perform at peak.  I must do the same if I want to perform at my peak.  Just like the Ballerina must work and condition their physical being daily, maintain a peak level, the in the field window cleaner must consider maintaining much the same way, the benefits to a strong body to accompany the strong business mind we are creating, they go hand in hand in reaching goals faster. 

Craig Hendzel

Lakewood Window Cleaning LLC

216-970-3603