The Religion of Everyday Things

We return at nightfall, shoulders bowed, weighed down by slights and insults. They fall from us at the door, as everything beyond these walls recedes. The horns and sirens, the pain and desperation that invade our outside life, all are silenced. We join each other and sit, and rise and sit, in unison. Then cleansed, we bow our heads letting love seep over the table until even the most humble foods-- the potatoes, the salt--feel shy and deeply cherished. When the meal ends, we find that we are pulled apart strand by strand, that the walls and floor are as deeply connected as our arms and legs. The elements have to weave and reweave as we move from room to room, sitting down in one or walking out of another. We connect almost as fluidly, bashful as strangers, Couteous, we pass in the hallways without touching; we close each door with the faintest sound; we say please and thank you and God bless you again and again, as though the act of sneezing were a form prayer and we were only answering in kind. In silence, we perform the ritual ablutions, as we always have; bathing in the dim sunlight of the morning washing our faces as we undress for bed. And in the end we lift the quilts and find each other there, waiting. every breath reverent, every touch of skin a testament.