This morning, I rescued my room from a week of comings and goings, fragmented attention, and a too-tired reckoning of I’ll do it tomorrow. All my best intentions and plans and ordinary habits set aside out of necessity – there simply wasn’t enough of me to go around.

It was a week of life-long held mantras: one day at a time, this to shall pass, first things first, and do the next right thing. Phrases borrowed so many years ago, I no longer know who spoke them or wrote them – I know only of their wisdom, their shelter in the sometimes-storm of everyday living.

How lucky am I to have a husband who knows something about buoyancy and friends who bestow patience like chocolates on a pillow when I most need to rest. This week, I’ve learned how hope arrives in an unassuming cardboard box delivered on the front porch and addressed to me – a reminder sometimes dreams do indeed come true.

So this morning I’m delighted by the sunshine through the bedroom curtains and the pile of pillows on the bench. I move this here, that there, and tuck all the stray bits and pieces of a life well-lived into the laundry hamper. Soon my shoes will line up straight back in the closet, and I’ll thank them for helping me stand upright and steady.

There’s hope still in the anticipation of who’s visiting this afternoon, what I’ll be creating next week, and where I’ll be traveling soon.

One day, one hope at a time.