to get to be the one to walk into a kitchen left in disarray because you all rushed out the door to get to a baseball game for one and a baseball tryout for another when one car is in the shop so you’re trekking around town in the other car, and it’s dinnertime so you bring food for everyone and clean up as you’re making it but still there are signs of life all over the counter and the other counter and in the sink and on the table and to get to be the one who comes into that and starts flowing through the riverbed over rocks into grooves alongside the bank sometimes over the bank through eddies and over and around sandbars all the while working closer and closer to the ocean of relief when you can finally reward yourself with a Pitaya-Agave countertop spraydown, closer and closer you get, picking up cups here putting them in the dishwasher there rounding about to the sink to wash some of what’s in there then a quick-pivot back to the dishwasher to load some more then wipe iceberg greens up here and curly kale there and chopped Brussels here and Dubliner cheese there–

I’m writing this, and Scarlett was still hungry after her post-baseball-rice-puff-peanut-putter-powder-corn-flake-Marge-granola cereal bowl and Wyatt was still hungry after his post-baseball-hot-dog-with-a-side-of-buttered-whole-grain-legume-toast (plus they both had some veggies for fiber and micronutrients and joy), so I made them their Hail Mary nighttime snack, the last shot, anxiety-kicking, “I’m safe and cozy,” nervous-system-reset, “Mom loves me,” whole-food-exclamation-point-to-end-the-day-with-potassium-fiber-fat-protein-magnesium-manganese-salt-iron-etc-etc

banana+peanut butter+peanuts+pumpkin seeds

DELIGHT.

But now I’m back sitting on the sofa right smack dab where two cushions meet, nestled in laundry piles, with my laptop on the top of my lap — the same spot I was in last night when Wyatt’s new hover drone thing came right at my head and wound my hair in its propellers while I just kept typing and asked someone to help, which Wyatt came over to do and then Scarlett got the scissors to cut my hair free, and it was all very funny which is why it came to mind tonight at the baseball game and I ended up sharing with friends there because its really a special thing to have a drone come for your hair, and though I think one time is enough, here I am sitting in the same spot — and it might look like this is all a digression from my original story but it’s actually the essence of my original story, the story where the river was working its way to the ocean and either I’m in the ocean now or I’m still the river or, probably, I’m both at once because where really does one end and the next begin?

It’s a joy and an honor to get to be the one to spill out the signs of life all over counters and spaces throughout the day, and to get to be the one to make something of nothing, to make a clean(er) kitchen from a not clean one.

Just now:

“Hey Mom.”

“Yeah.”

“I think I have an ingrown toenail.”