Editorial: A Perfect Day as described by Two Writers

I never thought being busy was a measure of personal worth — it’s just that it’s all so INTERESTING and my curiosity is aroused. These days, when people ask, “How are you?” my spontaneous response is usually “Busy;” or at the end of the day, “Tired.”

Even with my busy life, I usually feel at peace — learning, singing, debating, organizing, socializing, recording, enjoying, reporting.

With the recent spell of sunshine, I ventured out in my garden and pulled the easy weeds out of the dirt and felt such satisfaction. It doesn’t take any dirt at all to grow weeds. Peace is the natural state of things, my sister quotes her high school teacher from long ago ( but not long, long ago). To which I counter, change is the natural order of things; peace is being accepting of, and responding with integrity to change.

So when I finally took the time to read one of my favorite writers, Verlyn Klinkenborg, talk about returning to “the garden,” — his farm– I loved his depiction of the natural order of responding to the changes that nature brought to his day, and to the peace that emanated from his writing.

Here’s an excerpt:

On this first morning home, I find myself stepping out the door at 5:30. Ethel comes first, her walk and breakfast, and then it’s down to the barn to let the horses out of the night-corral. They pause in the barnyard, always — I like to think — with a sense of delinquency. I come out of the barn with a screen door that needs rescreening and startle the horses up the drive and into the pasture, where they instantly settle to grazing.

I have an endless list of tasks. I begin by lopping a pair of stray hickory saplings that are crowding a Parrotia persica, which has sprung into adolescence since I last saw it. I will have to do something about a piston-shaft on the mower that has gone. The bees are spilling out of the hive, but before I can inspect it, I have to fix the fence post that is leaning against it.

(To read the full article, go to nytimes.com/2010/06/06/opinion)

The message in Klinkenborg’s article about the day’s beginning reminded me of one of my favorite poems, describing the end of “A Perfect Day” (author unknown).

Here’s that poem:

A Perfect Day

Grandmother on a Winter’s day
Milked the cows and fed them hay,
Slopped the hogs, saddled the mule,
And got the children off to school.

Did a washing, mopped the floors
Washed the windows , did some chores.
Cooked a dish of home-dried fruit
Pressed her husband’s Sunday suit.

Swept the parlor, made the bed
Baked a dozen loaves of bread.
Split some firewood and lugged it in
Enough to fill the kitchen bin.

Cleaned the lamps and put in oil
Stewed some apples she thought would spoil.
Churned the butter, baked a cake,
Then exclaimed “For Heaven’s sake!

The calves have got out of the pen!”
Went out and chased them in again.
Gathered the eggs and locked the stable
Back to the house and set the table.

Cooked a supper that was delicious,
And afterwards washed up all the dishes.
Fed the cat, and sprinkled some clothes
Mended a basket full of hose.

Then opened the organ, and began to play
” When You Come to the End of a Perfect Day.”