Ordinary Days

I like weekends, holidays, and vacations just fine. But it's my ordinary days that really make me grateful. Days when I wake up, stretch, feel the energy to exercise or at least remember that I'll feel more energized when the exercise is done. Days with my kids learning and reading and talking, days when the sun shines or it doesn't, days when I look at my to-do list and feel a sense of purpose that makes me dig in and get things done. Days with students who sit at my piano bench and show me what they've done all week. Days that end with my head so full of memories and plans that I have to just sit and chill a bit. Ordinary days that, in their routines and mundane details, reveal the shape and purpose and trajectory of our lives.

Eight years ago was a day that started like most others, with some early morning students, and my own kids showering, reading, listening to the radio. We heard the news, we turned on the TV, we watched and cried, prayed. And an ordinary day turned into something else. I remember feeling "on guard" for several months, vulnerable. Then the build up to the war began, and the feeling intensified, so much seemed beyond control.

Today most of my energy is once again focused on my very ordinary life. Living, learning, working, volunteering, being a friend and mom and daughter and wife all take some time and care. And let's be real, 9/11 affected my life in distant, not intimate ways.

But an anniversary like this comes around, and there's something that pulls at me...be a better person, take a little more care, appreciate the little things, do what you can to make things better in the world, in your ordinary way. Play on...