The Small Work of Days
By Amy Clark
I have taken a day off of work to gather my thoughts: to read, and to write. I am standing in the kitchen slicing apples and cheese for lunch and suddenly a memory hits me of how instead of simply tossing an apple in a brown bag, my mother always sliced them for me and wrapped them in tinfoil. And then I start to think on what a small pleasure it is, to have the apple already sliced and ready to eat, to not have to deal with the process of preparation.
My imagination was in high gear then. Always, I was creating worlds and alternate realities in which my friends and the people I cared about could exist – mini-utopias forged by a child’s imagination. But I could do this because life had still spared me the drudgery of its details such as the turning of laundry and the slicing of fruit. When the buzzer goes off in the basement, now, I sigh, and pull myself from whatever chapter I’m currently mired in, sigh again as my bare feet hit the cold concrete and I go to tend to the work that never ceases needing tending.
I have tried, in my way, to adhere to Buddhist principles and revel in the small work of days, but tranquility always escapes me as the bills pile up and the dishes and the laundry and the groceries become depleted and need to be restocked. It is a new year, yes, but it is cold outside and I grow weary. My will becomes sucked away with the heat and I want to sit in front of the fire with a blanket and a book and the cat on my lap forever.
But it isn’t to be. I can’t let this torpor define me. I stare at the fire and I think that maybe instead of trying to absorb its energy in the limited form of heat, I should instead try to harness its energy and take it upon myself, send it out into the world. In this way, perhaps I can again recapture the limitless worlds of my childhood – by riding on the wings of fire, so to speak. It is cold outside, yes, but there is the memory of warmth and the memory of the passion that a single warming moment can kindle. There is also the memory of the apples, already sliced and ready to eat, the memory of a world in which one could wander about untethered, free to imagine a better world than this one, and there is the promise of a new decade about to begin.
____________
Amy Clark is an MFA student at Iowa State University. As a born and bred Iowan, she is honored to have her work appear on this site. When not writing she can be seen serving friendly folks at the fabulous Stomping Grounds Cafe in Ames. Her work also appears in literary journals such as Mid-American Review and Cimarron Review.
Iowa Essays
