The years between her husband's death and her eldest daughter's leaving home were, in fact, years of almost perfect serenity. My grandfather had sometimes spoken of disappointment. With him gone they were cut free from the troublesome possibility of success, recognition, advancement. They had no reason to look forward, nothing to regret. Their lives spun off the tilting world like thread off a spindle, breakfast time, suppertime, lilac time, apple time. 

--Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping, p. 13

Ruth gives an idyllic portrayal of life in Fingerbone that reminds me a lot of the time I have spent in Clarksdale, Mississippi. When we are down there, we hear a lot of jokes about Delta time, which is the slow paced, carefree way of living that is a signature of Mississippi. We are discouraged from bringing and using our phones on the trip, so we are more isolated from the rest of the world. Everyday while I'm there, my thoughts are on what I am doing in that moment. Occasionally, I wonder what will be for dinner that night or if I will get to work more on hammering after lunch, but there is a very simple routine that happens each day and the students who go on the trip form a close group as we eat, sleep, work, breathe together, similar to Sylvia and her daughters. However, the feel of the trip is still different than that of life in Fingerbone because we have a goal in mind, something we are looking forward to: finishing building the house. This makes me wonder if there were small goals while the four women were living together in their serene home. Maybe this is just because I have the mentality of always moving forward ingrained in my mind after spending years working towards each new milestone, but I can't imagine a life in which there are no goals at all. Mr. Mitchell mentioned in class today that the description of these years was reminiscent of adulthood in that it is easy to get caught up in the routine and believe that nothing will change. However, even if you have a career and a set routine for each day, most people are still working towards improvement of some sort, whether it is a more varied syllabus for a class or the best route to deliver newspapers. The idea of living in a setting in which no personal improvement is expected sounds kind of nice, because sometimes I feel overwhelmed with the pressure that is always on me to move forward and get better at things, but if improvement and moving forward, even in a minuscule way, is not present, maybe even discouraged, I don't think I could be happy there either.