My floor is cluttered with remnants of our day as I write. A ballet tutu recently adored during an afternoon of pirouettes hangs from the chair, a sword lays resting after battle, right smack in the middle of my coffee table and puzzle pieces are strewn all across the dining room. I have scoured our counters and floors again and again today, finding homes for interesting objects, filling our shelves with treasures in small swoops.
Even with more tidying waiting for my hands, I am done…I’m weary and mostly mush, but I’m choosing to stop and just stare at the un-ending scene of it all. Part of my mind never quite settles when there are tasks that lay ready, I get almost itchy with a compulsion to make our space look perfect. It can take over me and until I just see one (just one!) clean surface.
Sometimes when I am on my best behavior, I can make a game out of the tasks that come with the keeping of a home. Other times (which I think are more often) I remind myself of that awful nurse in The Velveteen Rabbit. You know, the one who had no love or understanding of the soul and beauty of the nursery? The one who never understood the real magic that lay behind The Skin Horse, the beloved Rabbit or even the mechanical toys. I always looked on her with such pity as a child. Did she even know she had been this close to something so wonderful and so rare and that she had missed it? How dreary to be that type of grown-up.
I don’t want to miss the magic…
Will you join me over at Mom Heart Online for the rest of my story today? And do say hello to our new community there if you haven’t already?