morning
by maggie wynne

Helen came downstairs carrying her half-empty laundry basket. She peered through the plastic lattice of the basket, being sure of her footing on each step. She had a tendency to fall. Halfway down the stairs she passed the cross-stitched motto her mother had left to her when she died. She lived under its commandment, as her mother had before her.

Count the day lost whose low descending sun

Views thy hand no worthy action done.

Helen didn’t read it. She didn’t need to. The voice of each tight stitch screamed at her with urgency, “Come on. Get your work behind you. Then you can relax. What would people say if they found your bed unmade and it nearly 10 o’clock?”

At the bottom of the stairs she spotted three goldfinches feeding at the window by her chair. The flashes of gold on the weathered feeder made her pause. Instead of carrying the load of laundry to the kitchen, Helen put the basket down and walked straight to her rocker in the corner of the sunroom and sat down.

Helen could not make sense of her struggle. There were only two of them in the old house. Life was simple. The grandfather clock sat in its paneled corner, its ticking echoing in the silence. She rested her head for a moment against the back of her rocker, closed her eyes to listen and let her heart beat with the steady sound of time.

Children passed the streets below the house, trudging off to school. They headed into the heat and humidity of mid-August like resolute little soldiers off to the fray. Weeks more of summer and duty grabbed them from their play.

Years before Helen’s children were in the woods out back until after Labor Day, catching salamanders in the creek, reading library books in their tree house. The screen door on the porch slapped pleasantly, in and out, in and out, all summer long. Summers were long and lazy.
Today she couldn’t make sense of the pushing inside her mind, the racing of her inner world, when she wanted to be still. Demands on her were small—a small pile of laundry, small meals, one bed to be made. Simple. She didn’t need to run the washing machine every day. Bill didn’t mind leftovers. No one was there to see an unmade bed or dirty dishes.

Yet someone was there.

Voices emanated from the cross-stitch motto each time she sat in silence to reflect on the beauty of the day. They deemed her lazy and self-indulgent. Helen fought against the voices for each stolen moment.

Yesterday morning, as most mornings of her life, the voices were too much for her. She surrendered. She never once sat by her window, her journal and sketch pad remained unopened She cleaned the kitchen immediately after breakfast, wiped out the refrigerator, polished the counters until they gleamed. That satisfaction sent her upstairs to make the bed, pick up the dirty clothes from the floor, sort the darks and whites, wipe the bathroom surfaces, and Windex the mirrors. She perspired, but did not stop until the first load of laundry hummed peacefully.

She felt safe in the knowledge that she had made the right choice. Before Bill returned home for lunch each day she had the kitchen immaculate, the bed made, the bathroom tidy and lunch waiting. The voices were hushed.

At lunch she watched herself. She had her list ready when Bill asked his usual question, “How was your morning?” She heard the hollow sound of her litany as she recited all she had accomplished. She hated the way she used her dutiful morning as a shield against his busyness. She did it anyway. She justified her existence.

Today Helen stayed still. The laundry basket sat where she left it. She was unwilling to make the trade—to forgo the peace and beauty of her still corner near the window and cash it in for the pleasant numbness of obligations that had become meaningless—emptier than the house itself.
When she heard the clock strike twelve she pushed herself deliberately out of her chair, walked to the stairs and reached for the motto. She removed it, untroubled by the clean spot it left on the wall. She carried it to her desk and placed it in the bottom drawer, among the old letters and photographs. She shut the drawer tight.

Helen walked toward the kitchen, smiling as she realized no one in the family would notice the cross-stitch was gone. Neither Bill nor the children and grandchildren would ask about it.
Out of habit she glanced in the hall mirror to tidy her hair. She was startled by what she saw. The woman in the mirror was magnificent. She frequently saw such women. These women did not hurry. Every movement conveyed peace. They were at home with themselves.

Helen noticed the sheen of her hair in the mirror and decided she liked how the stray hairs that had come loose during the morning softened her jaw line. The tight lines at the corners of her mouth relaxed, leaving laugh lines she found charming. She breathed deeply and felt the cool breath on the way to wake up her lungs. Her body felt both heavy and light—heavy enough that she expected to leave a footprint where she walked but light enough to carry her sixty-five years with ease. Her arms and legs felt strong, yet fluid as a dancer. It was as if her youth, no something immensely more beautiful than youth, had overtaken her. It was the bounty of her years, the fullness of being Helen. She was suddenly aware she was more, so much more than she had ever known.
She turned toward the kitchen, her steps light, yet certain.

Maggie Wynne writes poetry at Woodland Height, her home in Montreat. Several times a year she hosts writing retreats there along with her husband Bob and her dog Shadow. She is an alumnus of Peace College and Salem College. Wynne has just completed book of historical fiction for young adults based on her grandmother’s life and letters.