I Just Want Simple Things

Getting through extraordinary (evil) one ordinary task at a time

Simple Things

I used to want complicated things
To be elevated and
Exceptional 
To catch knowing glances
With important people 
To have a secure hold
On magnificence 
And to clink champagne glasses 
On a Wednesday night
In short, to master the world. 

Now as I climb 
Between well-worn sheets 
I am just thankful
To have survived the world
Another day
And as I kissed each child goodnight,
One two three,
I only wanted to shield their bodies with my own,
To splay myself across their very souls 
And live long enough
To do it again
And again
And again.
Now I just want simple things. 

Deidre Braley

The power of the ordinary task

I can’t remember the author, or even the exact words, but I recall reading a quote once about how to live through difficult, scary times.

The woman—I do remember that it was a woman—suggested that we simply continue to do what needs to be done, moment by moment. That we carry on with sweeping the floor, washing the dishes, making the next meal. That the secret to making it through is to address the immediate things, the mundane things, the practical necessities of the everyday.

I return to this idea often, especially when it feels that the world has become such a mess that perhaps it would be better if God scrapped the whole thing. Crumpled us up like a piece of failed homework and tossed us in the proverbial waste bin. I find comfort knowing that there have been generations before us who have also seen violence, who have toiled in prayer late into the night, and who have looked in complete bewilderment at the eccentric ways evil seemed to creep into the fabric of their own, ordinary lives. That yes, maybe it feels like the world is ending, but no, we aren’t the first ones who have felt like it. And that—despite the terrible threats and realities of war, plagues, corruption, and oppression—children still ate vanilla cupcakes and blew out their birthday candles. Husbands still wrapped their arms and legs around their wives in bed. Grandmothers still knitted socks for winter and school boys still caught frogs and teachers kept on opening books to page 43. And each night the floor was swept, the dishes set out to dry, or the table cleared, these people advanced just a little further through whatever the particular difficulty of their day was.

Last night, our serene little state experienced tremendous violence.

I saw the news as I did a final look at my phone before bed; I shuddered and shook my head and had the sudden, unsettled feeling that we are all just living in a pond of pain, except that the ripples seem to be starting from far away and growing closer and more intimate, rather than the other way around.

I woke up this morning to the news that businesses, schools, and churches were all shut down as the manhunt continued. Outside our bedroom, I could hear our children asking Ethan if they could watch Tom the Truck before breakfast. Our dog whined at the foot of the bed, waiting to be invited into the tangle of soft covers. Alden roused in his bassinet. I hid under the covers and wondered, How do I get through this fear? How do I continue on when everything is so decidedly wrong in our neck of the woods (not to mention our world) today?

Then I remembered those words. I did not know what the day would bring. I did not know how to process what happened the night before. But I did know how to nurse Alden to comfort him. So I pulled him out of his bed, brought him into ours. It felt good, doing this necessary thing. I found there was wisdom in that woman’s words, whoever she was—and I felt kindred to her, knowing that she had lived through hard things by doing ordinary things and suddenly feeling like maybe I could, too.

So today was extraordinary for our state, in the worst way.

But we made it through this extraordinary day by doing ordinary things. We read library books and ate pretzels. We threw sticks and leaves into the brook beside our house to see what would float. We pulled up the carrots and rinsed them under the hose. We had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. And moment by moment—task by normal task—we got a little closer to the other side of the unthinkable.

We all want to know the secret to life. Maybe this is it: to just keep doing the ordinary and good things. To sweep the floors, to wash the dishes, to make the meal. It may not end the war or erase the fear or solve the seemingly impossible situation, but it will get us through the day and a little closer to the other side of those things.

And here’s one thing I know: If given the choice between hiding beneath the covers or kissing my husband and making spicy noodles and scrubbing garden dirt from under my nails, I’ll choose the latter—every time. And maybe, years from now, someone will look back on my choice to do ordinary things in spite of the unthinkable and they, too, will find comfort.

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