Dear Reader,

Thank you for visiting, and welcome to this website.

As you may have guessed, I am an American housewife. “Don’t say that!,” someone once told me. But, if I were a bookie, I would tell you I was a bookie. If I were president, I would let you know. I am a housewife, and that’s the truth. To be quite honest, the riches and honors that lie beyond my domestic universe generally leave me cold. A judicious servitude is the greatest of all goods.

Domesticity is an ongoing state of war. I know it doesn’t sound dangerous, but it is. Home is a jungle. It’s a hurricane at sea. It’s a beast in chains.

Prove it, you say. I can only point to the ultra-ordinary as evidence. Think of the dust that blows in from distant deserts and galaxies, settling on tables, floors, walls and papers. There’s something reminiscent about each particle. Think of the broken pipes and the leaking roof. They crack their whips. Think of the wolf at the door. He huffs and he puffs. Think of the ambulance at the curb and the sympathy card in the mailbox. Home is the best place to die.

Think of future generations. They sing their favorite tunes even now. Think of the minds of children. They’ll discover new continents within four walls. “History has tongues,” said Stephen Spender. The same might be said of the smallest child, in communion with past and future even when incapable of speech.

Cleaning and cooking, dusting and weeding – this may seem very ordinary and un-dangerous to someone like you. To me, it’s filled with philosophical depths, and all the perils of the human soul. The kitchen broom and the garden hoe are ancient tools of enlightenment. The scientist in his lab may have the illusion of progress. The sweeper knows this: Nature only changes so much.  Out of the very ephemera of home, the idea of eternity arises.

The universe doesn’t knock at the front door; it enters the very cracks in the walls. We are hungry and there is a world of food. We think and there is a world of ideas. Dust is metaphysical. Truth is everywhere.

It’s true that thoughts themselves sometimes destroy thinking. The best cure is more thoughts, only the right kind.

Sincerely,

Laura Wood