The Things I Pick Up

I didn’t manage to do what I planned to do at home last night.
But at least something happened.

The map of the vacuum cleaner is almost complete now. It moved carefully around the house, learning the edges. I cleaned El Amer’s desk while it worked. The dust had settled thickly. The mouse pad was sticky in a way that suggested time passing without comment.

Earlier, my husband took me out to eat lamb at Maria’s Signature. It was salty. Everything felt saltier than usual. I noticed it too much. On the drive home, I thought about cooking for myself again. Not out of discipline, just a quiet sense that my body was asking for something simpler than what it had been given.

This morning at the office, Fairuz offered me cherry tomatoes. I liked them immediately. Crisp, clean, uncomplicated. I thought I might start buying them, keeping them on my desk. Something small to reach for between tasks.

I adopt things easily. I know this about myself.

In early November, I had lunch with Sara at the pantry. She brought her own food. After that, I started bringing my own lunch too. Almost every day. Without making a rule of it.

I used to buy takeaway coffee. I used to ask Farah Elise to come with me. She always declined. She brought her own. One day I asked how she made it. She said she used a moka pot. Since then, I’ve been bringing moka pot coffee to the office daily. The routine settled in quietly, like it had always been there.

During the Christmas public holiday, we went to my mother-in-law’s house. She uses a robot vacuum. That was probably when the idea arrived. Now we have one too. We call it Mangos. Hannan named it after the secret nickname we use for our helper when we want to talk about her discreetly, without her understanding what we’re saying.

Our helper doesn’t speak English. She can’t read or write, officially. But sometimes I wonder. I suspect she understands more than we think. Maybe English. Maybe a little Korean. It’s only a suspicion. I don’t try to confirm it.

These are the things I pick up.
Food habits. Tools. Small ways of doing things differently.

I don’t always finish what I plan.
But the house learns me back, slowly.