There is a particular kind of happiness that arrives when the dishes are done.
Not the sort of happiness that announces itself with trumpets or requires a special occasion. It is a quieter thing, almost shy in its arrival, and so easily missed that one must be paying attention to notice it at all.
This morning, I noticed.
The kitchen was clean. The laundry was turning faithfully in its machine. The bathrooms had been scrubbed, the household put to rights, and for once, there was nothing particularly urgent waiting for me.
And so I made myself a cup of coffee.
I sat down.
And the house was silent.
Now, silence in a house full of people is a rare and rather precious commodity. It generally arrives without warning and departs just as unexpectedly, usually accompanied by footsteps on the stairs or someone calling from another room.
But for the moment, it was mine.
I wrapped my hands around my warm cup, closed my eyes, and smiled.
There was no need to hurry. No appointment to keep. No task demanding that I abandon my chair. Even the laundry, which is ordinarily quite insistent about being attended to, was content to carry on without me.
It was a remarkable feeling.
I think we spend so much of our lives looking forward to the larger pleasures that we sometimes overlook these tiny pockets of contentment. We imagine happiness waiting for us on holidays, in beautiful places, or at the end of some long-awaited accomplishment.
And certainly, happiness may be found in all those things.
But sometimes it is sitting quietly in one's own kitchen, wearing its everyday clothes, waiting beside a cup of coffee.
Perhaps what made the moment so lovely was not simply that the work was done, but that I had given myself permission to stop.
There is nearly always something else that could be done. A drawer to straighten. A letter to answer. A corner that might benefit from a little attention. A household, after all, is never truly finished.
But this morning, for a few minutes, I allowed it to be.
I did not reach for my phone. I did not make a list. I did not use the quiet to accomplish one more useful thing.
I simply sat.
And I cannot remember the last time five minutes felt quite so luxurious.
Soon enough, I expect, someone will come bounding down the stairs. The washing machine will finish its work, a question will need answering, and the ordinary bustle of the day will resume.
I shall get up and attend to it all.
But not quite yet.
For now, the coffee is warm, the house is still, and the world, for one small and wonderful moment, seems entirely content to leave me alone.