maintenance

How I do this is like keeping up a house.  Day to day maintenance.  Just the little things that add up over time.  The changing of a lightbulb and the cleaning of the gutters.  Easy to let go for too long and the house becomes dark and the leaves pile up.  My grandmother changed the curtains every season.  Winter windows covered in heavy drapes to keep the warm air in, lacey white sheers to let the sun in in spring.

I do the same with home that is me.  Maintaining my sanity  day by day, constantly clearing the clutter of my mind and changing the curtains to let more light  in.  It is not easy.  The thoughts pile up bigger than dust bunnies, more like a house with too many dogs and no vacuum.

But each day, the simple things matter.  The walk to the park, the cup of tea in my pale green mug, a book and a blanket, the words of some poet or yogi, and if I am lucky the company of another.  Why it is this way I do not know.   It has always been this way.  The constant vigilance can be exhausting, is exhausting, but I have no other option.  Though often I have imagined it and wanted it.

So I chalk up a day as just one in line behind another.  Neither good nor bad, it makes it easier that way.  I wish sometimes it were different. I forget that sometimes it is.