Finding the Corners

Today, I found myself finally buckling down and addressing a few neglected areas of the house - the ones I only realize exist after I've tackled the mountain of laundry and dishes that have hovered in our midst the past weeks (or what felt like weeks). And while these jobs tend to include sorting out bins of cleaning supplies or finally assembling (with the help of my handy toddler) the new compost bin that thought it had taken up permanent boxed residence in the garage, something about these days causes my eyes to wander. To the corners. The ones I miss through the piles. The ones that give little clues as to how we spend our days and craft our lives. Ones like these.

This first corner is typically empty. But, this weekend, I found it like this: an Audrey-created pile that told the story of our weekend. The suitcase from her sleepover at Grammy's. The bucket that typically holds our umbrella misplaced by a couple of kids playing "let's drag everything out of the hall closet." Two quilts, passed down from grandmothers, recently taken on a road trip for a photo shoot with the great-grandchildren those women never got to meet, but somehow found a way to love, anyway. While I knew I should, it took me days to dismantle this corner. Each time I walked past, it was like a breath of all things good.



And this. The other kitchen corner that regularly catches my eye: the windowsill above the kitchen sink filled with things Audrey loves. Rocks - some collected and one with a tag on it that seems to have mysteriously been with us a while. A feather mailed to Audrey by a friend. A cool blue pot whose color reminds me of a calm day filled with an aloe plant that, bless it, keeps hanging in there (and that I have used on more than one occasion after burning myself at the stove).

Our corners. Our quiet reminders of who we are and how we spend our time, whether or not the laundry ever gets done.