Beautiful and Ordinary

One of my favorite ordinary parts of each day? Taking Biscuit for a walk. Especially if he finds a good stick.

It was an ordinary week, not one for the memory books, that’s for sure.

But I’ve been thinking about the ordinary, my ordinary, and remembering back to a time a few summers ago when we had just moved to our little house, and I was still married, and both my kids were home. Those were ordinary days, hot days, because we didn’t have air conditioning yet. I was shuttling my youngest to Lego camp down the hill and my oldest to friends’ houses for playdates. Sometimes we would go to the local community pool in the afternoon to cool down. There was nothing especially noteworthy about any of those days, but if I could, I would go back to relive any one of them, just for the pleasure of being back in a time when both of my kids were home and we were all together.

I have a feeling that someday I might look back on the ordinary week I had this week in the same way, wishing I could magically transport myself back to my kitchen table, where I am attempting to write something worthwhile, but feeling discouraged because it all seems so ordinary. My youngest and I had carnitas for supper that were prepackaged and delicious. I took Biscuit for a walk and talked to my neighbor who was out watering her flowers. It is still hot. I’ve been listening to a book, “The Calamity Club,” on my drive to work and whenever I can once I get home: when I’m doing dishes, chopping onions, puttering around the house. It’s more than 28 hours long, enough to almost make you give up before you start, but I’ve stayed with it and only have about two hours left. It feels like a real accomplishment and it’s a great story—highly recommended.

But isn’t spending more than 24 hours listening to an audiobook kind of an ordinary thing to do?

There were annoyances this week, for sure, ordinary things that I have to deal with. There was a tick on my arm the other morning, and I have no idea where it came from. There are ants in my kitchen. Can you believe that when I first spotted the ants a few weeks ago, I tried to pick them up and shoo them outside? Now, I wipe them up, drown them, or squish them. I am not happy about this, but they are not like spiders, who spin their webs inside my house and are generally welcomed.

I went to bed last night with hopes for what I would accomplish today; there is yardwork, weed eating, taking care of the birds and my garden. None of that happened. I woke up with a little stomachache and felt tired and draggy all day. It’s discouraging when this happens; it makes me feel like I’ve wasted this ordinary day.

Except I am here now, showing up and doing my best. I didn’t post last week, and I don’t have a good reason for that. Maybe my ordinary was feeling too ordinary. So here’s to trying again, writing and surrendering once again, to the possibility (probability?) of mediocrity. Mediocre and ordinary, but happy to be here. I am home with my youngest child, who is here for the summer, and my sweet dog, who I will take for a walk in a minute. Someday, I will look back on this day and wish that I could do the whole thing again: ants, stomachache, tiredness and all, because my kiddo is home, my sweet dog is here to walk with me, and that hot July sun is slowly sinking down under a bright, beautiful sky.