Smaller Fish

It's one of those Sundays. The kind I like once in a while, just to get myself back into that warm, familiar groove. I have nowhere I must go, nothing that must be done. Everything is optional. And I choose to give my room a thorough cleaning, finish a pile of laundry, pay some bills, sit and research a project, and then round the day off reading and munching on a bunch of bright red carrots I bought on my way back from college yesterday. I like carrots, especially when they are crisp and sweet.

But I digress. I'm talking about the kind of Sunday I like. This kind.

There's something reassuring about being able to finish laundry and all the tidying up...the things that ensure that some semblance of order finds its way into the next few days. It isn't really urgent - my room is neat and organised as a rule...and all the woollens and linen that I have just cheerfully dumped into that bucket full of Ezee could easily have waited at least another week. The shirt at the dry cleaners' can be picked up anytime till the 30th of this month. Airtel and Reliance won't, till the first week of February, feel the need to send me a not-so-subtle reminder of their bills.

And I could choose to do all this another day, but I'd rather do it now. It's fresh and sunny outdoors, with just a hint of breeze. It's the sort of time when  I know I will revel more than I usually do in the froth and bubbles and the smell of detergent on my hands; in the merry disorder that my room gets itself into when I am in the process of straightening things out good and proper. When I go to bed tonight, I'll have four things checked off a Post-It somewhere in my mind.

Also, I will have spent some time with myself in one of my favourite ways. :)

Maybe that's why it is so rewarding to finish these little odd jobs. Routine, which generally tends to get annoying in most things, brings comfort and familiarity in these small chores. I don't really have an explanation for it, except that every now and then, they lend my life some definition and purpose. Sometimes, right there in the moment, these little accomplishments make the bigger, fancier goals seem closer, more real. In good time, those will be achieved too...but for the moment, life is sorted out in finer detail.

And life laughs with you as you wipe a soap sud off your cheek, or when you misjudge spaces on your bookshelf and your dictionary falls back on you with an emphatic thud.

:)