JOY ALONG THE WAY: UPGRADING MY ROUTINE: REFLECTION IN A COFFEE POT

Some of my friends often say, "I'll be glad when things get back to normal." After hearing this several times, I began to question, what is normal? I agree, there is a satisfaction in routine unless we let it become so deadly we no longer notice life's little extras along the way.

This morning I arose at the "normal" time, got into my "normal" clothes, dashed my face with cold water and took the "normal" pathway into the kitchen. Programmed, any robot could do that. I filled the coffee pot and plugged it in, then I noticed something different. Someone had polished my coffee pot. I could see myself in it, sleepy-eyed, disheveled. But there was a smile on the reflected face. Someone among the holiday visitors has seen a need and filled it. There may have been a time in my life when I would have resented this, back in the routine days when I, myself, kept the coffee pot shining. But I only smile now, accepting readily any little help along the way.

This little departure from the ordinary jabbed me out of any symptoms of deadly routine and caused me look around and see what else might be new.

There was ice in the bird bath. Routine for cold weather, but there was a squirrel sitting on the ruffled edge of the bowl, his tail twitching nervously at the prospect of no drinking. When he seemed to make eye contact with me, he curled up his tail in that classic S as if posing for some photographer. Rising sunbeams caught the guard hairs and formed a perfect golden edging around the tail, shimmering in the new day's light. This was not routine. It was one of Life's Extra Photographs.

Now, how could I retrieve the morning paper without it being a routine journey? The delivery person pretty well solves this problem, for the paper is never in the exact same spot. It is either to the right of the big oak tree or the left. Sometimes it is hidden from view by the tree and I keep waiting for it to arrive.

This morning as I picked it up, there was an unknown jogger moving along the street. To lift the day out of routine, I said, "Good morning. Do you expect to have a good day?" The jogger slowed, stopped and, seeming to give some serious thought to his answer, responded, "Yes, I do. Do you?" "Always," I replied and we both went on in our broken-routine ways.

The news is seldom ever routine, but this morning, to assure I am out of any deadly rut, I did the unusual. I turned to the classified ad page, shut my eyes, wet a finger and whirled it downward to see where it would land, as a possible subject for me to write about. It landed on the Southeast Missourian's ad that said if a person was offering anything for free, such as kittens, old magazines, etc., they would run the ad for free. I have hundreds of old magazines, packs of old nails, tacks, screws, dishes, half filled paint cans. Any story to make of this? Maybe someone would take all the old paints and paint a varicolored barn that would draw statewide attention, maybe national, and solve a financial situation for the owner of the barn and basement clearing for me. Shucks, I've already written such a story ("The Barn Painter," "Better Farming," May, 1955.)

So I repeated the "scientific" exploration for story material. This time my finger falls on "Wedding dress for sale." There, now, it would be a poor writer who couldn't make a story out of that.

I pour a second cup of coffee from the shining pot and render thanks to the Muse of Out-of-the Ordinary, and the many ways we can arouse and activate that muse.

REJOICE!

Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.