ordinary life

I often find poems I like on The Writer's Almanac. Here is one I found today.

Ordinary Life

by Barbara Crooker

This was a day when nothing happened,

the children went off to school

without a murmur, remembering 

their books, lunches, gloves.

All morning, the baby and I built block stacks

in squares of light on the floor.

And lunch blended into naptime, 

I cleaned out kitchen cupboards, 

one of those jobs that never gets done,

then sat in a circle of sunlight

and drank ginger tea,

watched the birds at the feeder

jostle over lunch's little scraps.

A pheasant strutted from the hedgerow,

preened and flashed his jeweled head.

Now a chicken roasts in the pan,

and the children return,

the murmur of their stories dappling the air.

I peel carrots and potatoes without paring my thumb.

We listen together for your wheels on the drive.

Grace before bread.

And at the table, actual conversation,

no bickering or pokes.

And then, the drift into homework.

The baby goes to his cars, drives them 

along the sofa's ridges and hills.

Leaning by the counter, we steal a long slow kiss,

tasting of coffee and cream.

The chicken's diminished to skin & skeleton,

the moon to a comma, a sliver of white, 

but this has been a day of grace

in the dead of winter,

the hard cold knuckle of the year,

a day that unwrapped itself

like an unexpected gift,

and the stars turn on,

order themselves

into the winter night.

I remember when Kevin and I were dating and we'd write each other long letters and emails about all of the things we wanted in a life together. We wrote about our desire to share a life full of baseball games, bike rides, camping trips, fat little babies, homemade bread, road trips - sweet, fairly ordinary, things like that. Kevin once told me that when he pictured married life (before he was married) he always imagined a scene in his head of standing in the kitchen with his wife, laughing. I love that image, and I love that we have that together.

I have a tendency for wanderlust, as well as a tendency for seeing the negative in things, and the daily grind can be such an easy place in which to see the negative. I love this Barbara Crooker poem about an ordinary day because it highlights the grace that can be found in the routine. Marriages can live and die on how two people handle the challenges of the daily routine together - if all you see are the crumbs on the counter, the five loads of laundry that need to be done, the dog that needs to be walked and fed, and the floor that needs to be swept yet again, well, then, daily married life is probably not that fun for you. (Or, maybe you and your spouse have made a prior arrangement to live in total filth so that you never have a fight about household chores, or maybe you are wealthy and other people do all the chores for you, or maybe everyone in your house just pitches in all the time, and they even whistle while doing it, and your house never seems to get dirty - if so, congratulations and you can just pretend to identify with what I am writing about here.) I am at my worst when I allow myself to get crazy - militant, really - about the house being clean. A spotless house becomes an obsessive goal that requires near constant dusting and sweeping, and quickly turns me into a begrudging martyr who snarls at her husband for forgetting to check if all of the pictures frames in the house are straight. And crazy begrudging martyr is not the optimal state to be in when your spouse, who has just spent eight to ten hours under the fluorescent lights of his corporate job, comes through the door. Life works better for me when I am able to just pick up the socks, again, and when I can let the damn floor go unswept for a day or two. A tidy house, fine. But, an obsessively clean house that turns me into the "I DO EVERYTHING!" monster, not so good.

Life is a series of daily routines - that can be packed with grace, humor, and even a sense of peace - with a few really spectacular moments thrown in. When I am able to honor the grace (or at least acknowledge that it exists - sometimes honoring things is just too lofty a goal) of the routine, and even rejoice in those stupid little domestic triumphs of the every day - like when I find five matches in the un-paired sock basket after a load of laundry! - I am in my good place, and my husband is in his good place because he doesn't have to walk around with a level making sure that all the frames are straight. It's not always easy to find the grace in the routine, or to let the small stuff go - especially when you live with a fifty-pound lab who thinks shedding black hairs over every surface in your home is her job - but it's a way of thinking that can mean the difference between a happy life, and a miserable, if super tidy, life. 

And now, a collage of assorted images that came up when I Googled "missing socks." 

Where DO all the missing socks go? I like the washing machines as black holes for socks idea.