the Dishwasher

There are times when one must unload the dishwasher.

That is what I'm doing right now (or, to be precise, was doing before I reached for the computer).  Ben has been away, and I am my own team today.  Rain is slushing up the frozen snow that's covered the yards and iced into chunks along the walkways for days.  I'm listening to the neighbor's snow shovel scrape the concrete as I sit with chapped lips here in winter.

There are days, so many days, when you just have to do it.  No one can hold what you are holding, carry what you are carrying, climb into your skin and know.  There is no one fully capable of putting the mixing bowls and steak knives away nor scrubbing the chili from the soaking pot.  There is no one fully capable of seeing the chunk of prayers I hold for 2014, the dark rock in my hand, light glinting off the mica.  We all walk around with those rocks clutched in our pockets, in one way or another.  And then we do the day.

Today, it's just me sitting on the step stool in the kitchen as birds flit from slush to feeder, Silas and Maeve rustle in the legos and blocks downstairs, Eden, burrowed in her room, builds cabin from lincoln logs.  We are doing today.  For that I am grateful.