Ordinary

She wakes before her alarm, after dreams of calico kittens and tethered bridges swaying across canyons. She pulls on her slippers, her ragged morning clothes, and rouses her sleeping children. The microwave sings her coffee to life. She sips the sweet morning music. Just another ordinary day.

With a “brush your teeth” and “comb your hair” and “don’t forget your trumpet”, she whisks her ten year old off to school. Clutching his lunch money and shouldering his backpack, he gives nary a wave goodbye nor backward glance after perfunctory “have a good day” and “I love you” s exchanged. Just another ordinary day.

House quiet, coffee weaving olfactory webs, she stares at the blank page of the computer screen. When the words come, which they often do, she closes her eyes as her fingers fly across the keyboard, software correcting her spelling. When they don’t come, she furrows her brow and reads the words of others. Fickle lovers, those phrases. Embracing arms that cocoon her in warmth one day, leave her shivering and alone on others. Today, she has something to say, in between phone calls and recalcitrant teenagers with tummy aches. Just another ordinary day.

She showers and dresses, a staff meeting on the agenda for the day, a chance to reconnect with women she loves like sisters. Her work back burners concerns of silent cell phones and empty email boxes. She stops at the grocery, stops at the nursing home, stops at the gym to work that flab into frenzy. Somedays, she never stops.

Porkchops sauteing, broccoli simmering, pasta boiling on the stove, she slices strips of pear to complete her dinner preparations. Three hungry boys and the kitchen clock tick tocks the time left until they are grown and gone, following closely on the calloused heels of her own youth. Just another ordinary day.

Slipping between the sheets, she checks her alarms, settles down, snores to the lilting lullabies from the playlist she created for him. Mostly, her sleep is peaceful. Night sounds whistle and moan in her oblivious slumber. Just another ordinary day sliding into another ordinary night.

THIS is her life.

This IS her life.

This is HER life.

This is her LIFE.