Sometimes it's the simplest things that matter the most:
- The aural pattern of rain against the paving, dripping through the leaves.
- Two little girls keeping themselves busy, enveloped in imaginary worlds.
- The folded-up comfort of a cat snoozing.
- A drink, good company, conversation that digs up memories.
- A stack of books found in an odd second-hand store with someone special.
- Soup bubbling on the stove.
- A good book turned over on the table, paused, but just for a moment.
- The gleam of clean dishes on the sink, an ordinary task completed.
- The unbreakable beams of support offered by friends.
- The greeting of a pink hibiscus flower when I open my bedroom curtain in the morning.
These are the things that stand out against a busy world and which mean everything. I have a lot to be grateful for at the moment. Despite the difficult months. Despite everything.
And in celebration of that sentiment, a poem that has always spoken to me:
The Patience of Ordinary Things
Pat Schneider
It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?
