Our little blue apartment is chaos. Boxes with flapping tops are half-filled. Boxes scribbled in fat, stinky marker – “To G.R.” – are taped and crowded together. Some cupboards are just crumbs. Others are still plump with dried goods, stacked plates. The laundry climbs the wall for our attention. Lucy’s toys spill over from her loving regards.

If only we had maids, movers and managers. Someone to usher us through life. But, I’m reminded of a favorite poem and try to love the challenge:

The Delights of the Door
by Francis Ponge

Kings don’t touch doors.
They don’t know this joy: to push affectionately or fiercely before us one of those huge panels we know so well, then to turn back in order to replace it–holding a door in our arms. The pleasure of grabbing one of those tall barriers to a room abdominally, by its porcelain knot; of this swift fighting, body-to-body, when, the forward motion for an instant halted, the eye opens and the whole body adjusts to its new surroundings.
But it still keeps one friendly hand on the door, holding it open, then decisively pushes it away, closing itself in–which the click of the powerful but well-oiled spring pleasantly confirms.

translated by Robert Bly