This Totally Ordinary Moment

This Totally Ordinary Moment
by me

I see her standing in the kitchen
leaning back against the counter
waiting for the kettle to boil.
She is staring out the window
at the cold, gray dawn
rising over the white silent landscape.
She appears lost in thought.
I watch her through the open door
from my seat on the couch in the next room.
All is silent, except for the gentle rumble
of the kettle beginning to boil.

She wears her baggy cotton sweatsuit.
She is barefoot, her hair is mussed.
But for a moment as I silently watch her,
a vision appears to me. She is still
standing there against the counter,
but it is a bright summer day, and
she is twenty again. She is in that
pink dress she used to wear so long ago.
And the bobby socks and those
crazy checkered shoes she was so fond of....
Her fresh face shines, as the sunlight
from the kitchen window alights on her,
and she is smiling at me.

It is just for a moment, this vision,
and then I see that it is not summer.
The wind whips up and begins
to howl outside. A chill runs through me.
I grab a blanket beside me to
wrap around me. And she is still
leaning against the kitchen counter,
still lost in thought, waiting
for the kettle to boil, fifty, not twenty,
with wrinkles and extra pounds,
just like me. Standing there in
a baggy sweatsuit, barefoot,
with her hair mussed.

Sitting at the table, we drink
our tea mostly in silence.
Here and there a word or a few,
about the day ahead.
This totally ordinary moment
holds the microcosm of our lives.
Here is all of it at once.
Here is comfort, here is strain.
Here is history, the good and the bad,
the beautiful and the ugly.
Here the hot liquid is comforting.
In this moment is felt no need for more.
Right now is enough.

22 December 2008