Sometimes, it is enough

 

 

My kitchen windowsill in Canterbury, England, early in 2009.

Last night, I was reading Malena Morling's poem "Simply Lit" (http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2011/11/13) in which she asks, "Isn't it enough to be a person buying/ a carton of milk?"  My answer is, "Yes."  Sometimes, it is enough just to be alive, just to able to put one foot in front of the other to take a walk, to slice a piece of cheese, to peel an orange. 

A couple of weeks ago, browsing among the photos on my laptop, I came across this one taken during my semester in Canterbury, England.  I often ate breakfast standing at that kitchen counter, looking at the flowers that took me through the grey days into the unusually sunny spring.  I bought the flowers at the Wednesday market, where I also bought Brussels sprouts and tomatoes.  My life in Canterbury was simple.  I had arrived for fifteen weeks with two suitcases.  My clothes took up only a small section of the narrow wooden wardrobe and barely filled the drawers in the dresser.  I shopped often because the grocery stores were only a short walk away, and I bought little because I carried my groceries home.  And because I needed little.

The simplicity was freeing and comforting.  It allowed me to clear my head.  Living in a medieval city with a famous cathedral outside the kitchen window--I had only to look up above the brick wall--was both exhilarating and overwhelming.  Sometimes  I focused on the flowers on the windowsill instead, and on the breadbox.  And I felt that it was enough just to be a person drinking her cup of tea on a February morning.