The quotidian

by Donna Andrews of the Femmes Fatales.

In an interview last year right after the release of Wilde Lake, Laura Lippman is quoted as saying “I have a fascination with the day to day, the quotidian. I’m interested in how other people live in their most ordinary days.”

What she said.

In me, the fascination with the quotidian is perhaps strongest when I'm traveling—to another country, another state, or perhaps just to an unfamiliar neighborhood. I catch a glimpse of a doorway or a garden and start wondering about the people who live there. Who are they? What is their life like? What would it be like to live there myself?

I think that's the real appeal of Facebook for many of us—that we get glimpses into the daily lives of the people we know—or don't know all that well; some of them even well-known people we follow. Not, please God, a relentless chronicle of every single meal eaten, followed by any resulting digestive issues; of every step taken in the course of the day; of every—well, you get the idea. Glimpses. Vignettes. Highlights, not an inventory.

For me, the word quotidian also invokes the ordinary routine of my day. It's fun to step out of that routine, as I did this weekend, making a trip to New York City for the 2018 MWA board orientation meeting. Also fun to have the routine interrupted by things like the announcement last night that Gone Gull is one of the nominees for this year's Lefty Award for humorous mysteries. If I were a better person, I'd express at greater length my delight in meeting old friends and making new ones in New York, and share my optimism and enthusiasm for the coming MWA year. And I'd pen more than a passing (though sincere) thanks to the readers who nominated me for the Lefty, along with more than a token shout out to Ellen Byron, Marla Cooper, Cynthia Kuhn, and Cindy Sample, my excellent fellow Lefty nominees.

But at the moment I'm basking in the quotidian. Settling back into my usual routines.

I 'll be walking the loaner dogs, as I often do when my brother has a busy day and doesn't need to spend his lunch hour driving home to do this. I can use the exercise, and it really is gratifying to hear the frantic barking when I pull into the driveway . . . to see them running around in circles at my feet, as excited as if they hadn't seen me in weeks . . . to watch the enthusiasm with which they trot along so briskly. And then if my schedule permits, I like to hang with them on the sofa for a little while, reading whatever book I have in progress. Brightens my day sometimes, knowing how eager they are to curl up next to me or on top of me.

I'll be unpacking, putting things away. Doing laundry. Tidying the house for tomorrow's visit from the cleaners. Filling the feeders.  Dropping by the grocery stores—yes, stores; my grocery rounds include regular visits to Giant, Safeway, and Whole Foods, each of which has items I want or need that the others don't have or don't do as well. Going through the inboxes, paper and virtual.

And eventually settling down to get at least a token amount of writing done. Not as much as I will later this week, when I'm back in the groove. But enough to remind my brain that that's what it needs to be focusing on—the book that's due in a few months.

And no, I'm not going to put all those routine tasks and chores on hold while I write my draft. Used to do that early in my writing career. I've learned it doesn't work. At first it felt wonderfully Bohemian to let the housework and the laundry go and the email pile up while I buried myself in the writing. My art! My art! But if you do that, at some point you come up for air to find that the house is a sty, there's no edible food in it, you don't have a single item of clean clothing, and if you've really been feckless and ignored the bills, you've got no power for the computer you want to be writing on.

Now, my motto is that it's easier to keep up than to catch up. I might feel resentful and afflicted when it's taken me longer than usual to reach the day's writing quota, and I just want to watch TV or maybe fall into bed. On days like that, I have no interest in behaving like a grownup, which would mean taking care of the dishes and the laundry and the clutter and the bills and the email. But they're not going away.

So I do my best not to think of them as chores, but as part of the quotidian. The routine that supports my writing and makes it possible. If that sounds impossibly mature and zen, I confess that yes, sometimes I abandon what I ought to be for bed or TV or a long hot bath. But not as often as I would if I thought of them as chores.

In fact, I've come to think of my writing as part of the quotidian. An important part, obviously—but a part that's woven into the normal fabric of my life, not something extra added onto it. After all, it's what I do these days.

So hoping for a week of satisfyingly ordinary days. Dog-walking days. House-tidying days. Writing days.

Here's to the quotidian!

Comments

[Anne Louise Bannon]

Interesting way to think about chores. I have to admit, it's a little hard to think about scrubbing the toilet as part of the fabric of my life. But I do get it that there's a point where if you let it go too long, it is not going to help the word count.