There are days when most things are planned; where there is a list on a sheet of white paper, sitting alongside a heavy pen that checks off each imperative with bold ink. In the end, satisfaction in knowing yours was time well spent, in service to a life well lived. 

I thought this would be such a day. Finish the transcript; research voter behavior; edit submissions; prepare for my SENT cohort commitment; engage with the community; prepare for trash day; bag up clothes for homeless outreach; abide with a promising friend; clear out the passenger seat (how *does* so much accumulate in so little time?); read Joan Didion to honor my grief for Bobbye Jean who died six months ago yesterday; maybe find the time to visit her at Miramar Cemetery and then go see waves crash and ebb and flow and then sigh with contentment over a busy but (and) busy life.  

Not to be. 

My commode, already old when I moved to North Encanto 22 years ago, is showing its age. It’s a dowager; fussy and fragile. Sometimes intermittent. Sometimes, like today, recalcitrant. 

Apparently, the old girl was feeling particularly emotional this morning. I don’t blame her, she listens to NPR the same time that I do and is well aware of the state of the world. I guess it was all too much for her, for her tears overflowed the bowl and spilled onto the (again, old) flooring. 

She’s a gracious old soul; her tears were restrained. Not even an eighth of an inch of water. But enough to completely supersede my grand plans. 

So, all of this to say, I have more, and I have different work to do today. My bathroom was not on the list you see above. At no time when I wrote my ambitious list did I think I would have to find all the dry towels in order to sop up water, to declare the rugs beyond redemption, to clean and disinfect and dry dry dry, because the worst fear is mold and mildew, and to do it all without a first cup of coffee. (This is what Living Large looks like for the grandiose cult leader, y’all.)

I return to my list. What is non negotiable? What is nice, but not totally necessary? How much time will this new imperative take? 

This is true: I have to say yes to my commode and to my floor. That means I will have to say no–or, more accurately, not now–to other things.

There are things I cannot delete or put off. SENT cohort commands my attention, because I proffered a commitment to it, and there is a Conference who authorized funds for me to participate–put another way, they prioritized me. I am (painfully) aware that to say Yes to me, they had to say No (or not yet) to at least one other equally talented and committed person. Trash day in the hamlet of North Encanto is Thursday, no matter how damp the floor. 

Grief: also an imperative. I feel the loss of Bobbye Jean in my bones.

My mentor recommended Didion so I could more fully process the loss of Mama. The plan was to read Joan while I visited Bobbye. I may not make the 20 mile trek to Miramar, but I can abide with Bobbye in Taco Bell. A quick 20 minute reflection under harsh lights and food of dodgy nutrition, ya, but I can keep my commitment in that way. Besides, I will have to get supplies for mold abatement and mildew mitigation; so a detour is feasible. Will it be as poetic? No. But it will be meaningful, and Joan Didion will minister to Mama and me as I hold the empty chair for Bobbye in the land of the Gordito. 

The passenger seat? Another day. Editing and transcribing? For night shift, when darkness falls. The clothes can be bagged tomorrow; the friend appeased with a quick text and a promise of substantial abiding on another day. 

Back to the bathroom. It doesn’t have to be as time consuming as I will make it; I could sop up the water, roll up the rugs, spray Lysol, and call it a day. 

But. 

I choose to make this mishap an opportunity. To deep clean, yes. But also for contemplation. To truly think about the deep wisdom that I had been transcribing mindlessly; to truly tease out the difference between telling and showing; between proclaiming loudly and modeling quietly. To clean the parts of the floor that rugs have hidden. (Yes, there is metaphor for us here too. Our choice to face the floor’s hidden history instead of quickly laying down a new rug and denying and forgetting: an act of bravery.) 

To remember weekend cleaning with Bobbye. 

To recall and reflect upon what I have read so far of Didion; how when her husband suddenly died hours after he and she had visited their daughter in ICU, who was fighting for her life from sepsis, died still holding the knife which cut his dinner steak while she prepared him another Scotch, about how in the midst of all of that, how she found comfort and structure in cleaning up a mess far bigger than my thin layer of water. 

How she cleaned up after the paramedics, plastic bags that held fluids; syringes; other detritus used to (fruitlessly) attempt to save a life. Putting back chairs and tables that were tossed aside in favor of the gurney. Sweeping up things that inadvertently broke in the valiant effort. Clearing away the remains of dinner and a crystal tumbler that shattered when her husband did. 

All while the increasingly hopeless conversation between the techs in her living room and the hospital ER still rang in her ears.

And after all of that, doing all of that after she returned home husbandless, the only evidence of it all were the small red stains she couldn’t bear to clean herself. 

So, yes, she made herself useful and found meaning in the seemingly mundane. As I have, in many ways, in the absence of my mother. 

To make all of this less of a chore and more of a prayer. 

Lives are lived one priority at a time. One disturbance at a time. One force majeure at a time. One soaked rug at a time. 

One overflow at a time. 

Sometimes Lysol and old towels are all one needs to create a sense of normalcy. But sometimes, more is needed. Sometimes scrubbing and sopping up and being brave enough to see just what is indeed under a rug that had concealed harsh truths for years. 

Sometimes, in the repetitive, one can find the transcendent. 

I will not do all I want to do today. 

But I will do all I need to do.