Daily Routine

Sometimes I find myself getting out of sorts. This week it happened because of a combination of dehydration causes by the high heat, fatigue, plus the thick smoke that enveloped our place set off my allergies. My energy waned when I returned  home from teaching each day. I also suffer from depression. It crept in this week also. Rolling all this together put me out of sorts.

I knew what I need to do to lift myself up out of the cloud of sadness when I returned from teaching each day. It is always so much easier to hide inside while trying to beat the heat and keep hydrated. Keeping a routine is what allowed me to keep moving ahead during a week like this. Folding laundry,taking naps, making a bed, photographing flowers, feeding the cats, sweeping spilled pills, making to-do lists, filling up water dishes for the dogs, praying,and reading uplifting words. The routine tasks help.

When I stumbled across this poem today by Naomi Shihab Nye it made sense to me. She poetically spoke what I was attempting to say. I love a daily routine.

Daily

-Naomi Shihab Nye

These shriveled seeds we plant,
corn kernel, dried bean,
poke into loosened soil,
cover over with measured fingertips
 
These T-shirts we fold into
perfect white squares
 
These tortillas we slice and fry to crisp strips
This rich egg scrambled in a gray clay bowl
 
This bed whose covers I straighten
smoothing edges till blue quilt fits brown blanket
and nothing hangs out
 
This envelope I address
so the name balances like a cloud
in the center of sky
 
This page I type and retype
This table I dust till the scarred wood shines
This bundle of clothes I wash and hang and wash again.