“A good day for the drying,” as the locals say. Light breezes flutter the new green leaves, while laundry pegged to the line is impregnated with the smell of wildflowers and freshly mown grass. And the sun! The sun is bright in its robin’s egg blue sky, cheering my heart but also bringing to blaring note how badly our windows need a washing.
Sunny Days Are for Enjoying, Not Washing Windows
However, the best of days are not for doing the work of washing my windows. For one thing, if you have ever tried to wash windows in the bright, baking sun, you know the downfall there: The heat of the sunlight bakes on even the mildest of cleaning solutions before you can wipe it clean. The resulting streaks, spots, and smudges leave the view as mottled as if you’d simply moved the dirt around, rather than wiping it away. For another, the good days aren’t for the work. The good days are for enjoying the work, and that’s true of the work I put into my multiple sclerosis (MS) as well. Yes, just as the sunniest days are when I notice the salt splattered on the windowpanes by the most recent rain squall, so are they when I most note my shortcomings due to MS. But they’re not the days I strive to better my life with MS.
On the Darkest Days, I Do the Work of MS
It’s the darkest days — those when MS clouds blot out the brightness and make life seem dreary and gray as a February morning — when I find it best to wash the windows and do my MS work. That is when I concentrate on mindfulness, on well-being, on setting myself up for success when the sun does once again shine. By doing the drudgery during the difficult days, I am able to enjoy the better ones even more. While the good days can bring into stark relief that my life has dirty windows, I’ve found that my concentration on making it as clean as I can during the difficult days makes me appreciate the brightness beyond the smudges. Besides — and I’m not being flip — the darkest days are when any bit of light I can squeeze through those windows is most important.
On Bright Days, I Reap the Benefits of That Work
Bright MS days are when I see the difficulties but can enjoy the day anyway, because I’ve put in the effort when times are dim. Those sunny days are when the efforts we’ve made to remember to breathe, to do an extra moment of meditation, and to do the work we know we should be doing to make a better life with MS are paid back in spades. So if the day is grand, try to not focus on the smudges. Do that when it’s called for. That’s when we’ll need it most, and the windows will be clean enough on a bright day — even if there are still a few smudges. Wishing you and your family the best of health. Cheers, Trevis
