I Smoothed the Bedspread and Thought About How Often I Create Calm I Never Fully Get to Enter

Dear Delyara, I made the bed beautifully. That was the strange part. Straight corners, pillows right, blanket smooth, the room suddenly softer because my hands had arranged it so. I stood there for a second feeling that small domestic satisfaction and then almost immediately the sadness behind it. Because I am very good at creating calm. For children. For rooms. For schedules. For other people’s landings. What I am less good at is actually arriving inside the calm myself before the next demand takes me elsewhere. That bed looked peaceful. I did not fully feel peaceful. And the gap between those two things felt like the whole truth of a certain kind of womanhood.