The Steady Beat of the Quotidian

With a brain that tends toward the macabre, I dust on Wednesday mornings. Whatever comes—cancer diagnoses, political turmoil, emergency-room runs for my parents, uncertainties about the futures of my grandchildren, appliance breakdowns—on Wednesdays, I dust.

A drop-down writing desk from my grandma. A dye box, now used to store teabags, from my great-grandma. A piece of driftwood with a verse inscribed from my husband’s childhood. A six-inch thick unabridged dictionary from a library sale. A cup and saucer my husband gave to me just before we married.

And there’s more.

A spinning wheel made by my three-greats-back grandpa, who could craft almost everything someone needed—cradles, coffins, sugar keelers, chairs, tables, and wooden legs for amputees of the Civil War.

A shelf that holds the work of poets, who help me see wider, deeper, and in new ways—Dickinson, Frost, Whitman, Shakespeare, Millay, Sandburg, Lanier, and Williams. Another shelf with a stack of Cousin Week books that chronicle the nearly two decades of summers with our grandchildren.

And more.

A cuckoo clock I brought home from the Black Forest. A singing bowl I found at a market in Thailand. A rose-colored vase from a dear friend.

Room after room, my hands lift objects and polish surfaces. It’s a sort of rhythmic work. And as the lemony scent of furniture polish rises, so does a sense of normalcy and calm.

I need this steady beat of the quotidian—the daily duties and ordinary rhythms of life that give me the courage to move through the world and my days.

Though my world may seem to split in two, mornings come. And with them, the small functions of life that help hold me together. It’s amazing what worries I can tolerate when there’s work to do.

And so I dust. On Wednesdays.