Day 37 – Simple Things

January 15, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)

It is sometimes the simple things in life that bring a sense of joy…a smile from a stranger or friend, a heart-felt sigh, warm tea, an email from a friend, a good book, writing a new poem, playing my favorite music on the piano, a phone call from one of my daughters, scoring high on Words With Friends, a stretch of silence.

So often we look toward the big things for our happiness when it is really all the little things that add up to a real sense of contentment. Years ago, my mother used to wash the family’s sheets and hang them outside in the sun on the clothesline in our small Baltimore City cement backyard. My sisters and I would stand at her side and hand her clothespins. Later she would bring them inside and iron them. It would have been too much for her young daughters to iron the big sheets, but we felt really grownup when she let us iron the pillowcases. This was an important responsibility. We made sure to get every crease out. And then we helped our mother put the fresh sheets on the bed and later the sun smell on the smooth sheets lulled us to sleep.

Today, my husband David changed our sheets and made up our bed. We do not hang sheets outside but still a certain freshness will permeate as we settle in for the night. Often we make up the bed together, but tonight as I was baking him a birthday cake for tomorrow (his 69^th), he did the laundry and put on fresh sheets.

The caring for one another in these simple things wind up being most important.

My gift today is fresh sheets.

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> DAY 38 Conduit

You can read my other posts on this project here:

http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html