The sun is just perfect in this one spot - all golden and flashy and not a hint of the chaos around. It slides through a webbed and dirty window and not one speck of it touches a clean surface here; but at just the right angle
if you tilt your head,
maybe turn your camera,
it's perfect in this one spot.
I bring in other beauty, gather it in one place. My smile is silly and I remember making homes for my playthings and endless hours spent alone with them, arranging and re-arranging and imagining life the way I wanted it to look.
The stage is set and the shutter snaps and somewhere a little girl smiles silly.
The motes dance in the rays and why do they have to be considered dirty, untidy, work to be done but never completely? Just now they look like fairy dust or heaven's dew or even manna, bathed in natural currency
precious and un-inflated.
But they've always infiltrated this house and its filters and all the doors to guard against, the rugs to erase, the vacuum and mop to slurp up and the bunnies underneath
everything.
They're everywhere.
I tilt my head and turn away because I staged a picture of perfect that had nothing to do with me, nothing of my sweat or talents. But now by my elbows, greased and bent, I will make a wide swath of clean just to watch them settle, again -
because futility keeps me busy and busy makes me feel better. But not good. Not worthy or enough or finished or even close.
As the dust settles again and the washer beeps again and stomachs are hungry again and duty calls again
I look back
at the stage
and decide that I spent that moment well.