An ordinary morning
some quiet things, in grey, green and blue
Hello friends
This weekend was quiet. Ordinary. I did ordinary things; folding away laundry, putting on a wash, pegging sheets on the line, hoovering crumbs from under the table, watering the houseplants, weeding the veg patch, strimming the docks and hogweed before they set seed, filling potholes in the track, cleaning out the hens. Setting life in order. The weather was ordinary too; neither cold nor warm, a little sun, a little cloud, a few rain showers, some of them heavy.
All very ordinary, and infinitely precious.
Only when our ordinary is overturned do we realise how sweet it really was. When illness and misfortune throw our lives into disarray we’d give anything for one of those ordinary days again. Those whose lives are overcome by war, violence, famine, disaster, pain, illness, how they must long for such an ordinary, humdrum day. Ordinary is peace, is health, is plenty, is comfort, is calm. That we should, by some great good fortune, have all of these at once is the most extraordinary good fortune.
I was up and out for a run before 7am this morning, which, if you know me, is not all that ordinary, although becoming more so lately, as I get older and sleep becomes elusive. One way or another, I must have walked or run this route literally thousands of times, at all times of day and sometimes at night, over the ten years we’ve lived here. I have trudged up this hill in all weathers; snow, storms, hailstones, sunshine. This morning it was drizzling, cool, quiet and yes, pretty ordinary, as I puffed along, feet slapping the wet tarmac.
But this road takes me to the sea, which can never be ordinary, even on a drizzly morning, even when I am lumbering through the mud, slow and unathletic, trying to shake off the anxious fug of not-quite-enough-sleep.
Here, at the sea, the world comes at me and sweeps me clean. The wind is cool against my cheeks, but not blowing strongly. At my feet, candy pink sea thrift is freshly in bloom along the path edge, above huge tilted slabs of stone cracked into geometrical triangles that when, filled with seawater, become arrows of white sky in the black rock. The terns are folded quietly on their nests among the thrift. Their colony is just a few yards offshore, on a rocky outcrop separated from the land by a narrow finger of sea. Someone has placed a bench here, just opposite them, but I move on quickly, not wanting to disturb the birds at their brooding.
As I pass a group of empty farm buildings, a family of starlings explodes noisily from the darkened doorway of a crofthouse they have made their home. Their raucous bickering is everywhere just now, as the chubby fledglings blunder around following their parents, begging constantly to be fed, fed, fed.
Somewhere overhead there’s a skylark I can’t see, only hear. His song pours down like the rain, glittering drops of pure sound. Eventually I spot him, a tiny dark speck flittering in the grey, over the grassiest grass imaginable.
My neighbour’s cows come to peer at me over the fence, snorting softly with their big wet noses, curious but ready to swing and run. We consider each other awhile, standing quietly together in the soft rain. They trot along the fence beside me as I turn for home, then go back to grazing.
Home, I pull off my wet shoes at the door.
I am freshly laundered, set in order again, ready to begin the day.
So, too is the sky. The rainclouds roll back to reveal the most intense, sparkling blue.
A quick consultation with my new, high tech cyanometer scores what…42? 43? There’s not a blue in my studio could match it.
And now as the week begins I turn towards another kind of ordinary, to the quiet focus of the studio, and the long, steady haul towards my solo exhibition next year. Hundreds of hours will pass in here before then, and a whole new body of work will have come into being. For this to happen, I will need many ordinary weeks of good health, peace, plenty, comfort and calm. That I can hope for, even expect this, is a great good fortune I do not take for granted.
For ordinariness is the ground of creativity. It’s in those unremarkable, forgettable, ordinary days that children are raised, books are written, gardens created; small actions, repeated over extended periods of time, until one day you look back and are startled to realise how far you’ve come.
Long may humdrum ordinariness prevail. It is wealth beyond measure. Everything good happens because of it.
Join the Life Raft Creative Co-Working Session
Come and join me in the studio for some extraordinary ordinary creative time together. You are welcome our creative co-working session every Wednesday from 3 pm to 4.30 pm UK time. It’s very simple. We say hello, share what we’ll be working on, then leave our cameras on and work together in quiet companionship for an hour, then sign off with a quick check-in chat. That’s it! If you miss a session or can’t make it live, a recording is usually made available to paid subscribers (though not this week as I was away.) You can find them in the subscriber chat HERE.
until next week!
Sam
"Ordinariness is the ground of creativity." I felt that all the way down.
I keep coming back to the same idea: that the good life isn't hidden in the remarkable moments we wait for. It's in the laundry, the wet shoes at the door, the cows peering over the fence in the soft rain. Slow living was never about adding rituals — it's about actually being inside the ordinary ones we already have. Paying attention until the ordinary turns luminous.
Samantha, your studio is amazing!
“Hoovering crumbs under the table” caught me by surprise! The w-i-p’s you shared were evocative. The cows coming to check you out then walk a ways with you was endearing. That you pick the fruits of your life then share them with the reader is beyond generous. 🙏🏽