Things I Do Every Day

Unload the dishwasher.

Load the dishwasher.

Laundry.

Wipe down the bathroom.

Make the bed.

Something related to money: buying, writing a check, paying a bill, checking the balance online, setting up a payment, entering an ATM slip in Quicken, etc. etc. etc.

Wipe up something sticky.

Cook something.

Think about things to be done for school or church or home.

Pick up and put away something that doesn't belong to me.

Recycle.

Feed the animals.

I was thinking about this yesterday when I was transferring a load of laundry to the dryer. There's a lot of stuff to do every day that isn't particularly gratifying but I have to do it. Not only are these things not always particularly gratifying but they never end. Thankless tasks, one would say. Why, when there are so many more interesting things to do in the world, is a portion of my everyday life spent on that which is routine, boring, thankless, neverending?

The short answer is because I don't like squalor, can't think in squalor and I'd have to do this stuff even if I lived alone so whatever.

But there's more to it than that. Once upon a time I had a friend who went to jail for something she didn't do. (Don't get me started on the problems with the "justice" system in this country. That's a whole other blog). This was an ordinary woman. A woman like me. A woman with a husband and a home, who gardened and cooked and decorated and watched "Martha Stewart" on television. And then she went to jail. For over a year.

But I learned something from her experience. Because while she was incarcerated, the things she missed were the ordinary things. She missed cooking. She missed unloading the dishwasher. Because all of a sudden, those things mattered. She missed them because she used to do them all the time and suddenly she couldn't. Being able to do them meant her life was her own, she was in control. It meant she was free to do them. When that freedom went away, she missed them; even yearned for them. In her phone calls and letters she'd ask me to tell her about my day. She'd ask what I was cooking. Because she missed that stuff.

Ever since that time, I've been able to stop myself from whining much about my "to dos" because I understand the intrinsic value of the ordinary. It's mine. I get to do it. No one tells me when to get up, what I can do all day, when I have to go to bed. Add to that the fact that while I'm free to get up, do and go to bed as I please, I'm not doing it with bombs dropping on my street or with militias roaming the 'hood or my child starving to death. I'm not dying of AIDS or washing my clothes in a river or carrying the days supply of water from a dicey well along a dirt road.

Sometimes I'm overwhelmed by my daily list. Sometimes it feels kinda boring or pointless. But I'm thankful every day that I get to be bored. Those routines might seem pointless but they are my precious routines and no one is taking them away from me (knock wood). And when I think like that, even sweeping up the persistent detritus of life with two other people and their pets is a blessing.

Here are some other things I do every day:

Pray.
Shower.
Drink coffee.
Read blogs.
Pray some more.
Talk to someone who loves me.
Admire my lavender.

Life is good.