Just One Day

Thursday, July 18, 1996 7 a.m.

Laura-12, Jasmine-11, Margret-9, Trina-6, Lark-3

Steve has a small role in a community theatre production of Thornton Wilder's Our Town. In the play the lead, Emily, dies delivering her 2nd child. As she enters the graveyard she is missing life and wants to go back to live one day. Just one day. Her cemetary companions try to dissuade her. It's too hard, they say. The living don't appreciate what they have and focus too much on unimportant things.

If I were in Emily's place and were to select one insignificant day to relive and chose yesterday, this is what I would live...

I got up between 6 & 7 a.m. Ate two bowls of cereal. Got ready for work. Read a snatch of magazine article. Sat down in the older girl's room on the end of Laura's bed and listened while Steve read aloud a chapter from our core book. Then I read aloud a chapter from Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine. The one where they haul out the area rugs for their semi-annual cleaning.

Arrived at work at a reasonable time--between 8 and 9 a.m after picking up 12 dozen cookies from Ream for today's Summer Reading Program party. ($61.77 or 43 cents a cookie!)  Went outside to spray paint a "time capsule" box gold for today's program. Continued preparations for the program. It went well. The late afternoon was spent winding down, cleaning up, etc. til it was 5:30 in no time and time to go home to my neglected children.

Steve had been working in Salt Lake all day. My dad came over and was with the girls part of the day--made sure they had lunch. When I got home (driving the car the Mitchells have loaned us) the girls were upstairs watching a video. I had cookies for them but was dismayed when I saw the table still dirty from their lunch. (I had gone without lunch--ate three cookies).

So I called the girls down--to unload and load the dishwasher. (They each have assigned categories of dishes to do--they like this arrangement). Laura vacuumed. Jasmine swept and mopped. I wiped the table and counters and began supper preparations.

Laura was wearing filthy clothes she'd worn yesterday. Trina was still in her pajamas. Their hair was in need of a brush. Before long everything was in order--including the girls. There was some balking but generally done good-naturedly and willingly.

I made cookies but overbaked the first batch. We had a possibly good meal--buttered noodles with toasted almonds, freezer vegetables with parsnips added. No meat. Icecream with burnt cookies.

I hustled the girls to clean the upstairs somewhat.

I went outdoors to pull weeds. It had rained during the day and the ground was the perfect softness for weeding. The evening was pleasant but late. Soon all the girls were outside with me. I assigned rows and Trina was to pick up our weeds. Lark just occupied herself. Soon all daylight was gone and we worked by yard-light. Then I pulled all the weeds skirting the patio while Trina, Lark, and Jasmine "painted" mud portraits on the bricks.

They went indoors.

I stood alone in the yard in the dark, feeling the balmy evining--listening to the distant sound of an ethnic flute being played  at an International Folk Dance performance some blocks away. I thought how wonderful it had been working with the girls, enjoying and enhancing our little plot. I thought, "Life doesn't get any better." I walked to the front yard, wound up the hose, and came indoors.

The girls were scattered about the house.

Jasmine was on the couch looking at a catalog. Trina was filling the tub upstairs for her and Lark. Margret was on my bed reading a novel amidst a mountain of stuffed animals and dolls. Laura was in her room. I gave them each a task to complete "before Daddy gets home, to surprise him".

Margret was to put away the toys that were collected on my bed. ("Trina got them out!" she protested.) But she did it. Jasmine emptied the pile on the t.v. room rocking chair. Laura put the hangers and shoes away in the closet. I showered and sat down to read a chapter in my current novel.

By now I began to worry about Steve. I expected him home at 10:30 and it was 11 p.m. To my joy the van pulled into the driveway. He was home! Safe!

With Steve home and the girls all in the living room I read aloud another chapter from Dandelion Wine. Lark and Trina fell asleep. We carried them up to bed. The big girls went right to bed. I finished the chapter in my novel while Steve massaged my feet. Ahhhh. He needed to be gone by 7 a.m. in the morning to help with a church welfare canning project so we went right to bed. By now it was midnight.

And so the day went. Exquisite.

And today has begun--Steve is gone already. I was up by 7 a.m.--began a load in the washer, mopped the kitchen floor and wrote this entry while waiting for it to dry. I'll finish the floor now and get on with another day.