the year I gave up dusting

Two months ago I moved into a new house, as old as I am, and I have not yet dusted it.

I have not even tried to wage a war against the fingerprints on smooth surfaces.

I have not yet organized the books at my bedside. They lie haphazard on shelves, trembling with readiness to fall over.

Life is thick and fast, like the rapid freezing water that runs in a river beside the road that winds from Josh's birthplace to Yellowstone National Park, mountain water that is both beautiful and terrifying. Life rushes me on like a little twig in that water, but I am buoyed up, at least. We are buoyed up by dinnertime hilarity and family kindness and the southern light that falls through the house's front windows.

I have been silent in this space of late. My energy must pour into a tiny person and a big job and the life-swimming. But I wanted to say: hello. Hello from here.

And I wanted to remind myself of the gratitude that suddenly grips me at points these days: for the rumbling hum of the furnace kicking on; for the neighbour's crimson-tipped Maple; for the perennials I have inherited in beds around the house, and the way they fade and wither and promise all manner of surprises come spring.