I’m absolutely delighted to be participating in Snippets at Boy Crazy: finding clarity in the chaos today. Elizabeth’s brilliant idea about collaborative art makes the most of this disparate and wonderful web community. Together our voices and eyes can be more than any of us is individually. I love the concept she has pioneered and hope you will too.
Karen Maezen Miller is one of my idols. No, really. She, even on the screen, radiates peace, calm, and the hard-won wisdom of someone who has really put in her time to live in her life. I mention the hard-won part because my sense is that for her this is a practice, a deliberate effort. This makes her lambent wisdom all the more impressive to me, and makes her inspiration that much more influential. I highly recommend Maezen’s first book, Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood, and I’ve already preordered her second book, Hand Wash Cold: Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life.
Maezen’s blog, Cheerio Road, is one of my absolute favorite stops on my daily web perambulations. I can’t recommend her writing highly enough. Her voice is like that of a gentle but firm, very wise friend, who makes me see things I thought I understood in wholly new ways. That makes me aware of how little I understand, actually, but makes me feel wonder, and not defeat, about that fact. There is insight as blinding as lightning in her writing, but it is always shared in her kind, thoughtful voice.
Maezen is a Zen Buddhist priest, and she views all of life through that lens. She points out the beauty in the everydayness of domestic life, and I always leave her posts with a renewed commitment to stay present enough to see the splendor of my regular days. I’ve written a lot about my preoccupation with maps. I think it’s not a coincidence that at this moment – when I feel abandoned by these maps’ implied clarity of direction and assumption of motion – I’m feeling the lure of Buddhism. Perhaps, finally, it is time for me to stop moving so fast, for me to let go of the desperate need for a destination. Perhaps life is right here. And Maezen points this out more poignantly and powerfully than anyone I know.
Maezen’s post yesterday moved me deeply. It’s both my favorite of her recent posts and absolutely emblematic of all of the rest of her work. Please do go visit Cheerio Road – you won’t be sorry.
8 Steps to Happy Laundering
You might think I’m using a metaphor when I say that my spiritual practice is doing the laundry. Metaphor or not, laundry is the practice of seeing things as they are. Take a look at how to go from the hamper to happiness in eight steps.
Empty the hamper – Laundry gives us an honest encounter with ourselves before we’re freshened, fluffed and sanitized. It gives us a mirror to the parts of ourselves we’d rather overlook, and makes us take responsibility for our own messes. Self-examination reveals the pure wisdom that resides within each of us.
The instructions are in your hands – The tag inside a garment tells you exactly how to care for what you hold in your hands. Not just clothing, but very bit of life comes with instructions when we are attentive enough to notice. Doing it well may take more work than we’d like, but the effort is always worth it in the long run.
Handle with care – It’s inevitable: everything shrinks, fades and falls apart. Nothing stays brand-new. The most precious things we have are fashioned of flimsy fabric. Be mindful with each moment you have and you will experience your life in a different way.
Treat upsets immediately – Tomato sauce sets. Coffee stains. Ink is indelible. In laundry as in life, resolve upsets immediately before the residue of resentment sets in. When they’re not treated quickly, everyday messes can worsen into a lifetime of regret.
Don’t swallow the soap – There are no whiter whites or brighter colors, no matter what the detergent promises. Nearly all of our problems stem from the stubborn view that what we are and what we have is not good enough. We wear our insufficiency like a permanent stain, and that’s why everything we keep buying is some kind of soap. Don’t swallow it! When we release ourselves from judgment, we free everyone else from our criticism and blame. Plus we can save money on cheaper brands.
Let the spin cycle stop – Most of us spin the same anxious thoughts, fears, and worries in our head over and over, creating needless suffering for ourselves and everyone around us. Only when we let the spin cycle come to a rest, quieting our churning minds, can we lift the lid and find the load inside rinsed completely clear. Then, we can move forward into the fresh breeze of daylight.
The treasure lies within – Like the wad of bills left in a pants pocket, or the spare change that turns up in the bottom of the dryer, there’s a treasure to be found where you’d least expect it: inside. Stick your head in and have a good look.
Every day is laundry day – Every day brings the chance to slow down, pay attention, take care and engage intimately with the fabric of your own life. Sort the light from the dark, the delicate from the indestructible, and the heavy duty from the hand wash cold. The very thing you think you’re missing – happiness – is found every time you reach the bottom.
Have you ever come home in a blog? So asks Terresa at the outset of her post today at her beautiful blog, The Chocolate Chip Waffle. And, yes, yes, yes! I have, Terresa, and your gorgeous blog is one of those places. Actually it is the home I dream of, because your writing is so lyrical, poetic, and stunning that I can only dream of such sentences streaming from my pen! It is a distinct honor to be interviewed by you, and to see my name and words alongside yours.
Please, click over to The Chocolate Chip Waffle today, and explore some of Terresa’s writing – you won’t be sorry. She is extremely talented and I am so grateful to have found her in the blogosphere. Terresa, thank you for your kindness today.
It is my distinct privilege to be guest posting at Motherese today. I am so glad to have found Kristen and as I said when I featured her words here last Thursday, she writes beautifully about questions of identity, politics, parenting, and living in this world. Her posts are shot through with personal reflection and every single day she makes me think. (quoting myself: perhaps a new low?)
My essay at Motherese today is called Flickering Faith, and is a meditation on what faith means to me. Please go read my words, and then click around and enjoy Kristen’s thoughtful, lucid writing. Kristen, thank you for having me: it is a true honor.
I’ve been poking through my archives today, leafing through old posts and reading quotations that I want to post again. These are all by Catherine Newman, who is without a doubt one of my favorite writers – her book Waiting for Birdy is fantastic, and I miss the blog she used to write for babycenter. Hers is one of the voices I hear in my head, one of the perspectives I hold most dear.
*****
“In the deep of night, I am inclined towards heartbreak. I lie awake the muscle in my chest beating like a metronome, ticking away the rhythm of life’s passing, while outside the cicadas answer with their own clicking, also like a metronome, like a bike shifting gears, like a person in Greek mythology doomed to clip their toenails forever. I regret every time I’ve spoken sharply to the children, every time I’ve answered curiosity with distractedness, met need with impatience, countered gentle trust with self-importance. In the night, these occasions spook around me like the ghosts of Bad Behavior Past, hauntingly distorted.
I’m not being hard on myself, not exactly. I don’t expect perfection. I know that I have appreciated this journey; inhaled the children’s hair and smiles, crouched down to listen, lay down to comfort. Every day I have gathered handfuls of my own gratitude and flung them skyward, exalted; I have knelt down in gratitude to press my humble face to its grit. But oh, I have taken so much for granted.”
****
“Another person is like a geode lined with hidden glittering.”
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“And I’m remembering an email my friend Brian wrote me a couple of years ago, about his sons: “There WILL be a day when they don’t want to be carried up the stairs … But the idea that the last time will go unmarked and slip away without being cherished just made me so sad.”
I’m trying to hold this in mind when Ben wants me to put his socks on or carry him in from the car when he’s actually still awake or stay with him and Birdy while they fall asleep at night. I feel the familiar ripping-away impulse — the same impulse you might have if, say, a baby had been stapled to your bosom — and sometimes I act on it, whispering, “I’ll check on you guys in a few minutes,” and unwinding the arms that are boa-constrictored around my neck, loosening the very claws of love from the hem of my shirt, trotting out before the poor lonely bed-goers can make their emphatic case for my company. But sometimes I just lie there. Let there not be a last time, I think — a last time that slips away without being cherished.”
****
“I don’t know what to say about this — the way I incline towards sadness, latch on to it as it floats past, ride up into its currents. But it keeps me grounded somehow, however paradoxical that may sound…Looking into the face of loss is like a bell of mindfulness for me. This very heart that pounds sometimes with anxiety — this heart is beating! These very noisy children who make me want to fill my ears with rubber cement — they are vibrantly alive! This very full-to-bursting life — well, it’s life, life itself. “
****
“Sure, there are recurring themes: anxiety and impatience; my chaotic efforts at peace or the way I lumber after gratitude.”
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“I am still confused sometimes about what it means to be a parent — how much you advise, how much you leave alone. They are yours but also their own. They reflect me and surpass me. I am their trusted shepherd, and it is a privilege to have them in my flock. Love and grief, holding hands and skipping down the lane of my crazy heart. When my eyes fill with tears in the car, it’s joy, yes, but I don’t think it counts. It’s way too bittersweet.”