The children bring it in on their shoes or clinging to the roots of the flowers they pick for me. They’re often caked to their elbows with it after making mud pies. They seem determined to paint every surface of our little house in smudges: the windows, the couch, the new rug.
Dutifully I shoo them back outside, where dirt and children are supposed to be. Then I sweep, reaping dustpans of straw, dead grass, leaves, and pine needles.
The children get older, but the messes never end. Now there’s dirt on their soccer cleats; on their clothes after they’ve mowed the neighbor’s grass for twenty dollars; on their knees from their little gardens, where they grow their first tomatoes. I grab the broom more gently now, wondering how much longer I’ll be sweeping up after them.
