Normal Day

This weekend I found myself putzing around the house, which is strangely, one of my favorite pastimes. When I’m not cleaning or decorating or cooking “on purpose”, I love nothing more than to see what shelf I may find myself re-arranging or what drawer I decide to clean out.

It seems from a very young age if you don’t tell me I have to do something, I’m quite happy to do it. And in a moment of realizing how blissfully ordinary my tasks were, the devastation in California hit me in a different way.

Amidst so many people losing nearly everything from a material standpoint, many have also lost the ordinary - the putzing around, the normal day - for the foreseeable future. It’s made this favorite excerpt from Yes, World by Mary Jean Iron, come to mind, but with fervor:

”So Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, savor you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it will not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth or bury my face in the pillow or stretch myself taut or raise my hands to the sky and want more than all the world for your return.”