32nd day

One month done.  Eleven to go!  Seems a very long time.  This quote from the book I am currently reading: "And apart from me, who else would care?  I mean, if I thought the world would want to know about old Jiko, I'd post her stories on a blog, but actually I stopped doing that a while ago.  It made me sad when I caught myself pretending that everybody out there in cyberspace cared about what I thought, when really nobody gives a shit.  And when I multiplied that sad feeling by all the millions of people in their lonely little rooms, furiously writing and posting to their lonely little pages that nobody has time to read because they're all so busy writing and posting, -- it kind of broke my heart."  -from A Tale for the Time Being: a Novel by Ruth Ozeki.

I remember this whole self-indulgent dilemma in 2010 as well and can't remember how I got over it, but obviously I did because I completed the year.  I suppose at the most basic level it is a promise I have made to myself and also a kind of dare, to see if I am capable of the curiosity and self-discipline required to continue for another 334 days.

So here goes....

I ran just over 2 miles (about 3.4km) on the elliptical machine, which Tim has persuaded me to try because it doesn't hurt your knees, and you exercise your arms at the same time.  It is quite a brilliant apparatus actually, except your toes can go a bit numb.  But my knees are smiling, so I will persevere.

Taking the clean washing out of the dryer today, I was aware of the reverence of folding garments.  When we first moved into this house, as I took clothes out of the dryer I made four orderly piles.  Now there are usually only two, except when the boys come home. Nick went back to the city a while ago and Matthew has been gone almost a week now.  Every wash seems to have had something of Matt's in it, and today his last shirt to be washed was brought out, scented with rosemary from the essential oils I put on the woolen drying balls.  Soft fabric neatly tucked and turned.  I wonder what he took with him, there seem to be so many clothes now sitting in neat stacks on the spare bed in his room, waiting for him to return and animate them again.  

I do not have immaculate cupboards.  I am not a fastidious person at all.  I do NOT iron.  But I always fold the clothes as I take them out of the dryer, I never just heap them out into a basket.  It is actually a rule in our house, my rule, that if you empty the dryer, you have to fold everyone's clothes.  It is part of being civilized, like eating with your mouth closed, like waiting your turn.  And the reverence comes in thinking of each person as I touch the worn jeans, smooth the softest old t-shirt, marvel at the lightness of the warm fleece, hang the formal shirt, or try to remember which undies belong to each boy.  I know those beautiful bodies which wear these clothes.  One is my beloved husband's, and the others are my two boys who have grown from tiny womb-mates to great tall creatures with big hands and broad shoulders.

My fourth choice for my Desert Island disc is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSmxBNFnvkM