This Extraordinary Ordinary Life

Is there anything better than a sunny Saturday morning?  I’ve been reserving my Saturdays for writing.  My book will eventually be finished.  Yes.  I have been working on a book.  It’s going to take a bit to complete though…

This week was long, yesterday as I sat in a parking lot of traffic, rain pouring down, red brake lights stretched for miles, ambulances sirening down the highway, cars piled up, I dared not to look at the destruction.  I glimpsed the fragility of life.

How life is truly precious, each moment we take for granted or fail to realize how we are all just time away from the end. 

But of course if we always thought in those negative terms we would never be able to enjoy life for what it is, the good and the bad. 

The clogged sinks, the dark days, a baby’s laugh, paying bills, the love of family, the reeking garbage waiting to be take to a curb, a hug, a kiss, a nice juicy steak, laugh lines on faces, a fruity glass of wine after a long day of work, baking a lasagna, falling into bed, wrestling to wake up early… I revel in the ordinariness of every day life. 

I feel that there is a notion that happiness is found in money or things. Acquiring it, cataloging it, or spending it, showing off with it.  I see folks living glamorous lives, but all I can think is that here is something exceptional in the ordinary.  Domestic little things we are too busy to notice.  

When I was a nanny, I first began to notice little things in each day with the children I was caring for, little things that could be overlooked.  The way the baby would raise his eyebrows for breakfast, or that same sleepy time of day when I’d read the three year old stories until he fell asleep.  The nine hours we’d spend together, full moments so precious so full of seemingly nothing I can barely remember, but they are everything.

It was the same when I cared for a ninety-five year old lady with dementia.  Small nothings that were more meaningful than the hustle and bustle of wallstreet bankers, or business people scrounging for more dollars.  The humanity in these simple moments moved me in ways I can barely describe.  My Grandma told me of an old woman at a nursing home, and what she missed the most was getting her hands into soapy water and washing her dishes. 

There is an ordinary nature to death, while it is the most extraordinary thing that has ever happened to me.  I think of the extrordinary nature of addicts who are able to kick their addictions, to me that is a feat more intense than death.  Death is natural, it is the reverse of giving birth.

I’ve been considering my life in terms of, “before Kate died,” and “after Kate died.”

I could say, “ I am the same.” But that would be a lie. 

I’ve taken to calling her Kate, because I hated referring to her as “Mom” to all who came in the door, she wasn’t their Mom so to me that sounded weird. 

So, towards the end, Kate tried everything--healers, reiki, reflexology.  She wanted to hold onto life, to squeeze out every last drop of it that she could take like a thirsty person in a desert, ever the stubborn Taurus-bull that she was.  I would use my crystals to help balance her chakras, pulling in breath of each various color. 

When Kate had gotten her cellphone she had me set her ringtone to the song Imagine by John Lennon.  This was not ordinary. 

She told me how she once thought that song was sacrilegious, but when she heard it again, she actually thought it was beautiful and real.  How there could be no Heaven, no Hell…that was what God really imagined the world but because of sin we have a Hell and people doing terrible things to one another.   My belief that there is no Heaven or Hell only now, that Heaven or Hell is life right here on earth.

            We used to have long philosophical discussions like that, Kate and I, usually in the car because that was the only time she stayed in one place long enough to have a real conversation.

She told me how she missed when we were babies when she was home, cooking, reading stories, walking us in the stroller, comforting scraped knees, mopping floors, washing dishes.

I’d usually tell her that my worst nightmare was to be a housewife, doing all those things, relying on the income of another to take care of me.  She made fun of me this past year because while I was no mother, or housewife that is exactly what I did for several months.  Emptied dishwashers, vacuumed, cleaned toilets, cooked, nurtured animals, and took care of Kate, as a mother would her child.  

 So, what am I getting at?

Before my purgatory of pseudo-housewife phase, I constantly thought about how much I wanted to do with my life.  The degrees, the traveling(and I still want them) I thought for my life to matter I had to do something extraordinary.

 But now I know the ordinary, caring for a dying person, wiping their bottom, making a cup of tea, loving a baby, taking out the garbage, unclogging the tub, walking the dog, rubbing her feet, changing the lightbulbs, changing diapers…these are the extraordinary/ordinary feats of everyday living.  We take them for granted, we fail to see the beauty in washing a dish, or cooking a meal. 

But this is living.  It is precious, it is Heaven and I love it.

Here's a lil song that sums up my feelings just right....Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues...someday I'll be like the man on the screen.