Enough

Sarah hoists the laundry basket onto her hip, as she has done a thousand times. She rearranges the basket’s edge with one hand so that it doesn’t dig into the waistband of her Saturday jeans, and with the other hand, turns off all the lights the kids had left on in the basement. As she walks up the stairs, her mind runs through the to-do lists and mundane chores that lie ahead. A life of details, she whispers to herself as she turns off the last light in the basement.

Efficiency, that is what people would say is Sarah’s strong suit. She can get more done in one morning than most people can in a week. “You should see her go,” says an admiring and ever so slightly envious friend of Sarah’s ability to get it all done, “without breaking a sweat.”

Sarah turns the corner and swiftly ascends the final set of stairs to the bedrooms—one more load of folded clothes to go in drawers, one more empty basket to go back down to the basement. As she takes the steps, her mind drifts to a scene from the book Bridges of Madison County, a 1950s housewife named Francesca explains her experience of motherhood.  

"When a woman makes the choice to marry, to have children, in one way her life begins, but in another way it stops. You build a life of details. You become a mother, a wife, and you stop and stay steady so that your children can move. And when they leave, they take your life of details with them.”

Sarah ponders this passage from the book as she puts socks in her son’s top drawer. A mounting protest grows in her heart, I do not want to live only a life of other people's details. In the book, Francesca has forgotten herself and how to find joy in the simplicities of life, her own life, her own details. Sarah mulls the thought around in her head as she walks into the next room, her teenage daughter’s bedroom, with a thick layer of clothing on the floor.

She places her daughter’s clean clothes in a pile at the end of her bed, beside the pile she placed there last Saturday, which is now rummaged through and less identifiable as “clean” among the wreckage. Some mothers would probably think less of me, Sarah thinks, if they saw the way I let my daughter keep her room. But I draw the line here—this room is not mine, and her messy room is not about my morality or hers, she thinks softly, and leaves the disheveled room, headed back down the hallway.

Finally, Sarah enters her bedroom, and her reflection is the first thing she sees in the mirror over her dresser. She shares this room with her husband, and they picked out the new dresser together—a handsome dresser covered in a rich, blue woven fabric with round brass drawer pulls. Sarah had pined after this dresser in a catalogue, and when her husband said she should just get the one she wanted, she also allowed herself the permission to get the one she wanted.

She pauses a moment to take in the reflection of herself: her blond and dark blond strands pulled up in a messy bun, no makeup, red plaid shirt tied in the front, and her Saturday cleaning jeans. Cleaning the house is a form of domestic drudgery, and making it feel less like drudgery is part of why she chooses something to feel good in, even if it smells like cleaning spray by noon.

The bed is made in her room, the floor picked up, and there’s the usual pile of books stacked on her and her husband’s respective nightstands. It is a comfortable space, she notices, setting the laundry basket down in the hallway. She leans against the doorjamb of her bedroom and takes in the room’s stillness and the morning light pouring in from the window. It’s like a painting, she thinks, a painting depicting something quietly pleasant. She stands a bit longer in the doorway, leaning on her right foot, her left hand on her hip, pondering the square of light on the carpeted floor.

She thinks about her dog Puddin’, and how she follows the light streaming through the windows all over the house, sunbeams stretched into little patchwork squares on the floor. Sarah will walk into the kitchen to find her chubby lab curled up, eyes squinted shut, warmed by the sun in a patch of light right in the middle of the room. Puddin’ seemingly never gives it a second thought, whether to lie down in the sunlight or not. She simply follows her body’s instincts, which are to find pleasure, warmth, and serenity. I want to lie in the patch of sunlight is now Sarah’s only thought.

As though pulled by a magnetic force, Sarah abandons her laundry basket in the hallway and walks to the section of sunlight on her bedroom floor. For a moment, she considers the pull to abandon her list of chores, lie down, and be still—as well as the slightly alarmed look on her husband’s face should he find her here. She stands, contemplating her whole existence, her whole state of worth, and what it would mean to lie down in this swath of time, warmed and caressed. Her mind flickers back and forth to the dusting, the sorting of bills, and the undeniable tug to simply lie down.

Finally, she crouches and lays the full weight of her body on the floor; on her side, with her knees bent, she fits perfectly into the elongated rectangle of sunlight. She notices the carpet's texture; the fibers look different up close. Slowly, she settles in, allowing the heaviness of her head and limbs to be held by something other than herself. The warmth of the sun reaches every part of her body, a cocoon of divine stillness wrapping around her.

Sarah notices particles drifting through the air, golden molecules of life we don’t notice in our rushing. She lies motionless and silent, a moment of glorious nothingness.

Her mind finally intrudes with a thought of how strange she must look, lying on the floor. Her family would freak out, run to her, thinking something terrible had happened, like a stroke or a mental breakdown. But thinking about how strange or worrisome she might appear melts with the merest whisper of her own thoughts, How perfect it is to lie in this rectangle of golden light. How delightful it is to be in suspended time. Eventually, Puddin’ meanders in and stops at the exact spot where Sarah had been standing just minutes before, considering her cumulative worth if she were to lie down: the top of the sunlight rectangle. The edges of Sarah’s lips curl upwards as she imagines Puddin’s thoughts in a Winnie the Pooh sort of voice: Oh, well, someone has taken most of the sunny spot. I guess we shall have to share. After a moment of contemplation, Puddin’ walks quietly past Sarah and lies at her feet, just her snout and front paws sharing in the sunlight. Sarah has no idea how long she has been here, and she does not care.

This is enough. She feels the words in her body, settled, peaceful.

It is enough to notice the particles drifting by without counting the minutes. It is enough to notice the smallest of details, little invitations to live right now. It is enough to lie in this Saturday morning light.

Enjoy the slow- Heather