Yesterday I cleaned the house. I swept Lego into the sprawling Lego bag, put scrunched up paper from the art desk in the recycling box and found a home for a pile of feminist books that have spent a year in a collapsed cardboard box. I took all the candles and ornaments off the piano and dresser and piled them on the table to dust. I dusted between the piano keys and down the edges of the units. I hoovered away the crumbs and cobwebs and hairs. I shook the scatter cushions until they were plump and fanned the throw in the air, dramatically, before carefully laying it back down on the sofa. When my husband came home, I said: look at what I did today, and I showed him my work. He said it looked lovely, and I felt proud.
