So this week I am making an effort to put on my shoes sitting on a chair. I can't explain how oddly formal this feels. I'm used to sitting on the bed when I put on shoes. Sitting on a bed feels right and natural. It feels like what Jesus would have done. Sitting in a chair, while not wrong in itself, seems unnatural. I'm aware that a moment before I'd been standing in naught but my boxer shorts, and that image is still floating in the back of my mind. To sit in a chair, an object admittedly made for sitting, while I put on my shoes, seems to disrupt the easy mood of domestic informality of the morning rituals.
You might say, why don't you just smooth the covers yourself after you get up? This is not so easy as it sounds. For some reason, I lack aptitude at smoothing things. It may have to do with the configuration of my hands, the angle and trajectory of my smoothing motion, or unintentional torque applied by my wrist, but whatever the case, when it comes to smoothing, I am no better than a well-intentioned gorilla. If a surface is extremely wrinkled, I can in some cases make it smoother, but I am never able to make it smooth. Worse yet, I have smoothed things to the best of my ability, and perceived them as smooth, indeed, glassy, but then watched Nancy come behind me with a casual hand and make it smoother still.
A similar effect is noticeable when I clean the kitchen. I will leave it spotless, gleaming - the plates are so clean, you could almost eat off them - but then Nancy will come behind and make the kitchen cleaner still. No, rather than attempt to smooth the bed, it is better I try not to wrinkle it at all.
Fortunately, Nancy and I have a fair division of labor. She pays the bills, does the laundry, cooks the meals, takes care of the dog, cleans out the chicken coop, sweeps, mops, washes toilet bowls, makes sure prescriptions and insurance are up to date.
I put on my shoes while sitting in a chair.
We all pitch in the way we can.
