This morning I was awake far earlier than usual, at 6:30. I went on the deck and filled the bird feeders then stayed there to read my papers and drink my coffee. I find early mornings have the most glorious smells and sounds. The air is crisp and clean and scented with flowers and newly mowed grass. Birds sing and I can hear the flapping of their wings as they fly in and out of the feeders. The coffee this morning was hot and strong. I had a second cup then I left to meet my friend for our Monday morning breakfast.

I don’t remember watching my mother clean the house. During the school year she did it while we were gone. During the summers we were never around the house to watch her. Only my two little sisters were and they were mostly in the backyard, not yet being old enough to wander. I’d leave for school, and when I got home, my bed was made. I’d put my clothes in the hamper and they’d reappear cleaned and folded. It was a bit like the elves and the shoemaker. The dish strainer usually had clean dishes sitting in it to dry. We were to rinse any glasses or dishes we used and leave them in the sink. My father went crazy if we didn’t rinse out our glasses. He’d yell if he found a dirty glass on the counter. He called it the height of laziness. I thought he was underestimating how lazy we could get, but I knew better than to mention it. No one ever owned up to the dirty glass. That would have been foolish.

Except for my brother we never had any chores growing up. His was to empty the kitchen basket into the outside barrel. Trash was traditionally a male chore. Once in a while my mother would ask me to empty the garbage. She had a triangular plastic garbage holder in the corner of her sink. I’d take it outside touching as little of it as possible, use my foot to open the metal cover of the in-ground garbage bin then I’d dump the garbage and bang the container on the corner of the bin to make sure it was empty. The garbage always had maggots. I’d watch them for a while. Garbage grossed me out but maggots never did. I never thought that strange. Maggots were interesting while garbage just plain smelled bad.