When our first child was born my husband and I decided that I should leave my job and stay at home with our son. I have never regretted that decision, but it wasn't a cakewalk. There was a transition period. A time where I felt like I was losing myself. Buried in stacks of diapers to wash by hand, (rolling brown outs in the Philippines made hand washing necessary at times), the endless cycles of wash, feed, burp, change, repeat, made me feel like my brains were turning to Pablum. But over time, probably as a coping mechanism, I learned to find ways to enjoy the necessary routines.
I learned to "experience" the tasks at hand and tried to enjoy them (at least some of them). I began to be actively aware of each step in a task. I listened to the sound of running water, smelled the scent of the soap, squished around in the pan of soapy water like I did as a child, before adding the less pleasant dirty diapers. Once cleaned and rinsed the methodical rhythm of of hanging clean cotton Nappies in the Philipino sunshine allowed my mind to wander. I would think creative thoughts or just enjoy the scent of frangipani flowers on the breeze.
Over the years I have honed the art of "Embracing the Mundane". Homeschooling two boys who were 7 years apart meant lots of planning, preparation, and patience. Designing cirriculum that would address the educational needs of a kindergardener and a pre-teen challenged me creatively and intellectually, but there was a whole lot of brain burning repetition it the application of my plans. So, sometimes when we were going to be doing unpopular or "boring" stuff ( quoting the kids), I would pack a simple picnic lunch, break out the fishing poles, dig some worms from the compost bin and head to a nearby lake. Here on the lake bank we would memorize multiplication tables, conjugate verbs in Latin, and practice reading while drowning worms. With the bobber gently rolling over the wake and the breeze rustling through the lake shore reeds, verb conjugation and multiplication tables seemed far less onerous. But of course, if something hit the line, all scholarly endeavors were momentarily abandoned. The catch was reeled in, observed, released and celebrated before returning to the task at hand.
The kids and I were all seeing how to cope with the mundane. Learning to make simple changes to facilitate getting something done rather than putting it off, adding a little fun to an undesirable task, or looking forward to a little treat after finishing something challenging were tools that could be employed for a lifetime. It helped us to have successes instead of butting heads, shedding tears or secretly going and screaming into a pillow (...me...).
I have learned that breaking a task I am tempted to put off into bite sized pieces, means that I am moving forward however incrementally. Every step taken leads towards a finished task. Learning to find a way to enjoy each of the steps makes the whole business more pleasant. Rather than saying to myself, "I don't have time to do this", I ask myself "what part if this can I do in 5-15 minutes"? For example weeding; with as many gardens as we have here at Heart's Ease Cottage, weeding can be quite daunting if looked at as a whole. But if I ask myself "what can I accomplish while I am waiting for a newly mopped floor to dry?", I can go chip away at my weeding task for 15 minutes and enjoy the view of a freshly weeded bed. Acknowledging and enjoying the little successes in a day empowers me to have more of both successes and enjoyment of them!
At the end of May I need to prune, deadhead and feed my perennial borders so they will continue to bloom. I love my gardens but I didn't always love the actual gardening part of gardens. That is, until I started establishing rituals that made these necessary but less than desirable tasks more pleasant. I dress in something cheerful, take a pretty basket out for snipping some blooms for arranging later, and use a pair of pruning shears that make a pleasant sound as they open and close (this periodically requires a trip to the garden center to stand there opening and closing shears until I find one that makes the "right" sound). Once in the garden, I make an effort to remain aware of the pleasant surroundings, the bumbles busy pollinating the flowers around me, the methodical snipping sound of my shears and the feel of the soil against my bare feet. Being mindful of and enjoying the simple things going on around me turns a boring task into a pleasure.
With each passing year I find myself more and more appreciative and content with doing the day to day things of life. I don't need to be doing something special to enjoy myself. I have learned to find pleasure in most anything I have to do. Rouine, order and a plan,
spiced up with a little fun makes repetitve day to day tasks more achievable and the saisfaction it brings to see progress made, spurs me on to tackle the next task that needs doing!
