The Rhythms of Housework

In my head, I have a half dozen or more posts about what I've learned in the past few weeks regarding homemaking. Probably, you know all my lessons already. I seem to be slow coming to these realizations, or at least slow in having them crystallize in my brain. I plan to share them all, if for no other reason than my primary reason in continuing to keep a blog is that my daughter has begged me to journal it all for her to have and hold someday. For now though, I am called by the beep of the dryer, the hum of the refrigerator, the silence of a vacuum cleaner whose work for the day is already planned. And so, I'm recording here instead, a snippet from my morning reading, which reminds me so well why I need plans, rhythms and routines in my home.

The rhythms of housework also provide a way to resist the relentless 24/7 pace of modern life in favor of something more suited to human embodiment and relationality. New parents are sometimes dismayed to discover that babies and young children require predictability to thrive. Children need a sense of when it is time to wake up, time to eat, playtime, naptime, bathtime, bedtime. Their parents, on the other hand, have sometimes been under the impression, encouraged by our culture, that a good life is one in which you act on impulse, not on schedule. No wonder parenthood comes as a shock to them: not only are they new parents, but there are also new to the creation of the rhythms of home. How much more conducive to the well-being of the household it would be, both before and after children, if housework and housekeeping were treated as an intrinsic and positive part of life in the body and community rather than as a set of boring and limiting chores imposed on you by parenthood. --from Keeping Home: The Litany of Every Day Life

I hope to have time later to think here about how clearing out clutter opens space for creating rhythms and encourages the keeping of those rhythms.    But now, the blinds beg to be opened to greet the day and the windy chill invites me to ensure that my children will awaken to the smell of hot chocolate and bacon. Many blessings to you this day!