Reflections on the quotidian

I de-scaled the kettle today. For most people in the US, making boiled water doesn't require an electric kettle and so this may not make sense, but in England where tea is so English that school kids lecture me on how English it is, Miss, even as I insist that yes and no: tea was brought into the culture relatively recently, one must remove the build-up of a lot of water as it boils away.

This set of facts may already be boring you. In fact, it is not the point of this story.

I was proud of de-scaling. That is my point.

Despite my feminist upbringing and my post-post-post philosophy, I am loving the domestic routines that I have developed. Every school holiday, which (thank the effing heavens) occurs about every 6-7 weeks, I descale the kettle. And get my hair trimmed. And catch up on sleep.

So, while accomplishing the first, I reflected on the quotidian. (In my top 50 words of all time, by the way.) The mundane and the routine, the daily, can become a gorgeous dance, a ballet of balance. And yet, I knew instinctively today that it will someday become a prison of hang-up and unquestioned habit. I knew someday, I would break free of this thing I so enjoyed currently. Over the sink, removing the yellow-white build-up on the inside of our kettle in a satisfyingly effective rhythm, I knew that this was my cycle: create, build, get accustomed, practice, practice, practice, question, dismantle and maybe burn it all to the ground. The routines I mean.

It becomes a little tinderbox for the rage I (and probably most people if they let themselves) inevitably feel at being boxed in tigers in a society that thinks much, much less of us all and expects things completely opposite to our natures.

This was a happy sacrifice. Someday this routine will be a happy little ephemeral moment only.

Today I saw the future, and like the certainty of forest fires scorching the earth and opening up pine cones so that new seeds can germinate, I found a little bit of peace in this.