It’s 10:15 on a Sunday morning and I’m so happy. It’s an open kind of happy, with the relief of realizing there is more daylight ahead of you than you would’ve guessed. A glance at the clock slows my breath. My daughter is playing at “floor is lava” with puzzle piece foam mats scattered across the basement. I’m affixing foil glitter confetti to scraps of paper with Mod Podge, making bookmarks because. 

Because I want to get my hands moving this Sunday morning. Because I want to teach my body how much can be made from so little: a dot of glue, the pulpy ghost of a tree, and something shiny. Here—mark your place in this book, in the day. I was here. I am here.

The residue builds on the pads of my fingers, and soon the mess of it is everywhere. The surface of life gets tacky with use, and crumbs get left behind. I make these purposeful things without occasion, and it’s a kind of faithful meditation. These bookmarks, for one, more than I could ever need in my own home, but I make containers, too. I use the cardboard of delivery boxes to make magazine holders, those upright rectangular deals with a ski slope cut into them. I line them up and shuffle them around my basement. Sometimes they do find a home with me, but mostly they go out into the world. I give them away.

Potential. Bookmarks and storage and all these things we collect, I think we like them because of what they suggest. A book that might get read, precious papers we might store. Maybe it would be nice to remember where we are, or where we’ve been, or who we might be.

Do you remember who you were, Sunday at 10:15? I wonder what of your life sticks to the surface, messy and happy and unavoidable. What happens when your hands get moving?