Once broken doesn’t mean always broken. Healed doesn’t mean there won’t be mending to do. Mending doesn’t have to be a hard work, it can be a soft one, a gentle tilling and tending.

A piece of litter thrown into the recycling. A spritz of perfume behind my ear, the bright of the bergamot jumping in front of any other scent. A smile to a stranger. A smile from a stranger.

The mending is tedious work.

Not nearly as flashy as the smash of a break, the haul of a put-back-together. Not nearly as fit for the stage.

The mending is a thousand small leg lifts that strengthen the hip. Remembering to take vitamins. Taking the time to watch a sunset.

Today, I sharpened my pencils and cleaned my lenses and screens. I watered the plants and cleaned the window blinds, and let myself nap when I needed one.

I toasted a piece of bread as a warm snack, and spent time with memories.

I’ve let the mending get away from me before, and it builds up and presses on the parts of me that are more familiar with broken than whole. So I remind myself now, to do the steady work of it.

To tend to it with power.

I tell myself it is my life, my stage, and I get to cast who I want as the star. I push these tiny things front and center.

A smile given. A completed to-do list on the wall.

In the background, there is still a cell, and fire, and maroon box of ashes, and a farm. All of the signs have scrambled words, and the code that runs down every screen has forgotten what it is calling for, and time swims through the clocks twice as fast as it needs to– and all of this seems like it should be noisy.

But today, I am tending to the mending. I am holding onto to the healing, the healed.

I keep my eyes front and center,
and smile back.