Almost every day for the past year we have been bombarded with words like “unprecedented,” “novel,” and “extraordinary.” Yet for the most part we go about our days stringing together ordinary moments one by one in whatever has become our .new routine. Join us as we honor those ordinary moments for a #MedHumChat on Wednesday April 7 at 9 PM EST.

Special thanks to Rebecca Grossman-Kahn (@rebeccacgk) and Trisha Paul (@trishakpaulmd) for curating this chat.

Rachel Fleishman: The Everyday

“The everyday, lately, has been uneven. Our house lost power. The dog injured her leg. My husband has shingles. My employer is bankrupt. My father-in-law tore his aorta. And yet the everyday is still there. Oatmeal, tennis balls, Elephant & Piggie. I am fixated on presence, on the quiet moments between the doing. The dog pressed heavy with sleep against my shin while I write. The coffee cold with too much milk. The uneven echo of my older son dribbling a basketball in the driveway.”

Pat Schneider: The Patience of Ordinary Things

It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?