Clean

The past two weeks have been ridiculous, and I arrived at this morning just feeling... discouraged. Kind of sad. Nothing major is wrong, but the pile of little things that are less than ideal have started to pile up. I'm tired. And nothing I do lately seems to turn out right.

I spent today cleaning, sorting laundry into piles, organizing clothes, airing out blankets that had been piled up since winter and were now headed back into storage as we headed into glorious warmer weather. The electric blanket was folded neatly. I washed the new dishes and admired the way they stacked up, orange and vibrant and perfect, on the drying mat. When I reached for the dish soap I squeezed the bottle, and a cascade of tiny bubbles shot out into the air. I laughed at the unexpected delight, their spontaneous luminescence. I burned candles - "Easter Lily" and "Vibrant Spring Morning - and inhaled the scent deeply. I reached to turn off the water just as a bird landed on the birdfeeder outside my window, and we both froze, motionless, sizing each other up. He relented first, deciding that I was no threat, and picked through the seeds with an impossibly slender beak, before selecting one and darting off.

I swept the floor, emptied the trash, restored order foot by foot as I worked my way from one end to the other, thinking wryly how much twenty-seven feet could expand when it was dirty.

By the end of the day, I was covered in the grime that had once covered my living space. I ran the water for a bath and slid into the warm tub. I washed my hair, breathing in the luscious scent of coconut and lavender, rinsing off a day's worth of dirt and, with it, a fortnight's worth of stress and flubs.

Here's to new beginnings, to starting over, to trying again with new resolve. Here's to the small everyday magic of coffee, a nap, and hot showers. Here's to fresh pages where we get to write the story again, and again, and again, until we get it right.

Here's to clean starts.