We bounce in our seats, our tires roll across the sand and dirt of our rural roads.
Spring air swirls and sunshine dances with cumulus clouds.
The back window creaks a sing-song melody.

It’s a good day in May.

It’s ordinary.
No startling sensation. No splashy show.
No monumental news or magnificent next thing.

Boring, some might say.
Perhaps they’re right.

Boring, but beautiful.

My daughter curls on the couch in the corner opposite me.
The screen door is open, and the breeze feels good.
On the porch outside, Theodore thumps his tail and Jackie bumps the bottom of the door as she repositions on the rug.

It’s a good morning in May.

Unexciting, some might say.
Probably true.

Unexciting everyday, but extraordinary all the same.

“I don’t do anything all that exciting or interesting.” 
Words fall from my daughter’s mouth that I’ve felt myself countless upon countless times. 
Said them myself.

We’re talking about the chore of carrying on surface conversations, the burdensome task of soul-stifling small talk. When one lives a quiet life it doesn’t create the most stimulating scenarios to prattle on about. Instigating conversations or initiating greetings have never been my giftings. Much as I may wish they were, I still struggle immensely.
Let me go home already!
My introversion is decidedly more given to discussions of depth and ideas and psychology and theology and the in-our-bones complications of living this human experience.

My life is small, sheltered, obscure. No great degrees. No mighty deeds. No fabulous awards. No high I.Q. No “great-things-for-God.” No power or prestige. No blue ribbons. No blue checkmark. 

Five gold stars? Nope. 
New York Times bestseller? Nada. 
Notoriety? Not a bit.

Insignificant, some might say.
They’re not wrong.

Insignificant, with soul deep significance.

There are no piles of gold to loll in like Scrooge McDuck, no swinging in to save as Spiderman, no navigating the murky road to Mordor.
You won’t even find a yellow brick road to follow, though one would think it is possible since we call Kansas home.

Some days I’m bothered by this. Other days I embrace it gladly and fiercely.

Heroism happens easier in high stake stories. Shows up flashier. Looks better from afar. 

I might have barely begun to understand that I will never quite fit in anywhere and maybe it doesn’t matter. 

Maybe good days in May are good enough.
Maybe it’s not a coincidence when I re-read words I’ve written months ago.
Words that say, “…permission to be my Hobbit, hearth-loving,  home-embracing self.
To be the person in my own actual life.”


It leads me to think of the song I listened to again and again on Spotify last autumn as October waned.
“I want to be where my feet are.” 

In the right here, right now.

For at times I find myself edgy, unsure. I find myself opting for familiarity, yet peeking over the edge, spying through the keyhole, longing for an adventure. 
Perhaps this is why Bilbo was a bit grateful to Gandalf though maybe it really only was the Took blood from his mother’s side.
I long for home when I am too many successive days away and yet at home sometimes I long for the allure of an upcoming boarding pass in my Delta app.

Deep down, I want to live well into wherever my feet are.

Our ordinary days are where our lives happen. Blink and we’ll miss it. Long too hard for what is not and we’ll fail to focus on the brilliance of what is.
Complain too often and the cumulus clouds give way to narrow nimbus ones in darkened flat display. Believe all our dreams must be one hundred and two percent validated and we’ll vaporize the valuable and cast cloistered vision to what could be valued.

Become so dogged about what a dream life is and dismiss the delight decorating all of our ordinary days.

Close ourselves off and ignore what makes the world go ‘round.
Focus on the frenzy and forget the fortitude of faithfulness.

In the soapsuds and dishes, the watering and wishes we meet goodness.
The morning routines and teeth brushing, the last-minute scurry and rushing scrawl day-to-day memories, illustrations in the stack of pages in our story.
Life happens around meals at the table, mowing our lawns, mailing surprise packages.
Making dinner. Moving furniture. Messaging a friend with laugh-out-loud memes.
Building martin houses and welcoming the colony. Multi-tasking and maneuvering the grocery aisles. 

These may not be notations to narrate a riveting novel, cause excited exclamations, or even warrant a second glance.

But it is flower bouquets and fireside s’mores and a red haired son who bakes delicious cheesecakes. It is macarons made by a neighbor and a brunette flower girl in a white dress. It is meatballs and macaroni, root beer and fireflies.

It’s trips to the library and bulging bookbags. Traversing the zoo or hiking to a waterfall. Walking the dog at the park, morning and evening. It’s a three year old nephew exclaiming, “Ah, nice!” at all that deserves notice. 

It’s trumpet practice and saxophone melodies. It’s the last-day-of-school party. It’s bridal showers and baby showers.  It’s kindness and clasped hands. It’s noisy neighbors and loud laughter. It’s a daughter who loves collecting panda bears. Pickleball at the park and a secret garden behind the garage. It’s bicycle rides around the block and forts built in the woods. It’s driving dad’s car and permit tests. It’s cookies for the class and hearing we passed. It’s going to our favorite restaurant for the one hundred and twenty-sixth time. It’s a pony-tailed granddaughter etching a black inked snowman on the side of her styrofoam cup. It’s kayaks at the lake and the creak of a porch swing.

Tomatoes on the vine and watercolors and new shoes and tiny viola petals and hummingbirds and clean floors and dirty floors and the person who always kind of bugs you and lemonade and summer season at the pool and fresh eggs and planned vacations and kittens and princess shoes and the evening and the morning of a new day.

In the rhythms and the restlessness, we write rhyme.
The rise and fall…of breath in our lungs, of gladness and sadness, of schedules and commitments follows the heartbeat of hallowed days.
Sports and snacks and groceries and sweeping floors and mending and bandaging and engine repair and coffee brewing.
Reports and balancing accounts and growing hedge funds and asking questions. Returning phone calls, finding insurance, donating to charities. Writing prescriptions or teaching addition. Organizing and categorizing and downsizing.

 Life in all its ordinary glory.
Ordinary…..with a different definition for us all.
Subject to our place, our position, our point of view.

I can hear the fountain.
The window is open. Pink curtains catch the breeze. 
Dishes clatter as I stack them. Silverware rattles into designated divided compartments.
I plan to mow later on.
A splatter of gravel and squeak of brakes announces the arrival of the UPS truck. A swoosh and rattle echo by the fountain as the driver throws the truck door open. The dogs appear as greeters and footsteps reverberate on the back steps. 

It’s a good afternoon in May.

I feel at home the very most when I’m at home with myself. Literally and figuratively.
When I pick up a pen and string words together.
When I have solitude and time to muse, to meet my own soul.
When my introverted nature is nurtured by creativity and space and wonder.
When quiet is the soundtrack and ambience abounds. 

When I give myself permission to be the person in my own actual life. 

When I resist the rush of life, the urgency of achievement, the allure of distraction.
I listen to the chorus of birds. Their chirps mingle with the fountain and carry to me past the swaying pink curtains.
Often the crush and clutter of life obscures the obvious exquisiteness of the observance of ordinary life. 

To curl on the couch in conversation.
To cruise the dirt roads in Kansas.
To carry out ordinary chores and complete the daily details once again.
To recall who we really want to be in our own actual lives.
To lean in and listen to our lives.

To simply pause and praise for one good day in May. 

“The day before she’d died, the three of them were in the hospital room, and her grandmother had said, “What I wouldn’t give for one more June day.” She wanted to talk with her friends on the porch, eat a bowl of raspberries with whipped cream on top, grill out, stay up late playing cards with the two of them. And the weather would be warm, not hot. Big cloud, blue sky weather. Lena had excused herself, went to get tea, and hoped that at the end of her own life, she would only want one more good, but not special, day.” ~ Megan Giddings, Lakewood