For the past two nights, I have engaged in an old childhood ritual: I have taken my daughter’s dolls and untangled and combed out their hair. I sit on the couch and comb out the dolls’ hair, feeling it smoothen out and grow silky under my ministrations. There is something terribly soothing about it. It reminds me of the simple contentments of childhood and of sweet moments brushing my daughter’s quick-growing hair when she was an infant. As I do go through these motions, I feel myself calming and a peace coming over my soul in the simple action of tidying up something and making it lovely (even if it is just a doll’s coiffure).

Even though, tonight, I am weary and tired from a full day and I feel a touch on the weepy side, I can take deep breaths and sink into the sweet simplicity of this act and just be.