Oh, Normal.

" Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are...

let me not pass you by in quest of some

rare and perfect tomorrow.

One day I shall dig my nails into the earth,

or bury my face in my pillow,

or stretch myself taut,

or

raise my hands to the sky and want,
more than all the world,

your return."

-Mary Jean Iron

Come back Normal Day. Immersed in the ordinary but on the precipice of extraordinary. A hand held firmly to her forehead, leading her mind away from the discomfort that greets other parts of her body. Pushing silken hair out of her tired eyes, hand pauses to stroke her cheek and dry warm freely-falling tears.

Hold a drink firmly in my hands for her to sip, fluff pillows, change sheets, tuck blankets, hold her when her knees give way. Extraordinarily ordinary, but yet.... not.

I have been in the position of wanting, more than anything the return of these ordinary habits. Of wishing the clock would hold its hands in the moment of time when all things could be fixed so effortlessly.

When these not-worth-mentioning normal things I did all day long held such unrecognizable importance because they were so completely benign, so entirely ordinary. Such small motions that quench Love's thirst.

Time. stills. the. restless. hands. of. a mother. as. a. child. grows.

Needs lessen.

Hands grow idle.

I am filling up again, with the return of tender gestures and what I now know to be breathtakingly EXTRAORDINARY moments. Hands busy with the familiar. Grateful, that in all this, I can be present to receive this most exquisitely precious gift.

So I dig my nails into the earth, hold firm and breath in this familiar and instinctive normal.

Oh circumstances.......how I wish you were different.