When I was a child, I heard it said: "Slow down. Take small bites. Don't gobble your food." In the middle of my chocolate pudding, I did not get it.
When I was a single mother struggling through tough days, I heard it again: "Savor these days. When they are gone, you will miss these times terribly." In the middle of my worries, I didn't have time to really take that advice to heart. I was just too busy.
When I was a cancer patient, I discovered the lesson again: "Don't look too far ahead. Just take it one day at a time. If you don't, it gets overwhelming. That time I DID learn the lesson. I was isolated, because I had no choice. I was taking afternoon naps because I was tired. I was taking life one chemo at a time. One radiation at a time. One day at a time.
Then, treatment ends. The fear of recurrence fades. You get sucked back into the current of life. The daily grind. Keeping up. Doing the best you can for those around you. Living your purpose.
Suddenly. It. Stops.
Yesterday was a rough day. As per usual, I was trying to cram all my housework into one day and that's damn well enough without washing the same load of clothes twice, or spot cleaning cat barf off the carpet (and WHY is it ALWAYS the CARPET??!!!) I was worrying about my job. How long will this virus thing go on?
One think led to another.
And all those thinks got to be too much thinking.
This morning, Tim and I talked lazily in bed for an hour. We had no place to be.
He went to Grand Valley to play with tractors and to brush hog.
I tuned in to Zoom to listen to the Bishop's sermon about Martha and Mary and the raising of Lazarus. I listened to this sermon while I cleaned the bathroom and scrubbed the fixtures. I realized that I had unconsciously reprised the role of Martha from an earlier parable and was a little ashamed of myself.
I baked cookies. I didn't double the batch. 36 cookies is enough. As each tray baked, I filled in the time by cleaning the kitchen. In an hour, my cookies were baked and the kitchen was back to rights.
Our house is a hundred years old. Like all old houses, it is the opposite of the open concept that is so popular these days. Every room has doors.
Every room can be blocked off and heated on its own, a wise thing for old houses with radiator heat. Alas, the radiators are gone. Due to the improper winterization of a foreclosed property, the piping all froze and burst and destroyed those lovely radiators.
But the doors remained: four rooms with french doors. Heavy 4 panel doors in the bathroom and the kitchen. They were dusty. And so I got the polish and sprayed them down an polished them.
I thought about the people who made those doors. Craftsmen from another time. They had seen WWI. the Spanish Flu Epidemic. WWII. Mrs. Brown was the wife of the business man who had this house built so long ago. Her father is listed on the monument in the center of town, one of our Civil War heroes.
The hands that touched those doors had gone through tough times of their own, and without the luxury of keeping in touch through the internet. The same internet that I cursed yesterday, sick of the foolishness of it. Without the luxury of a freezer of food, of central heat, the entertainment of 3 dozen channels on a television set.
I polished those doors and I really took that time to admire them, paying homage to those who had been here and gone ahead.
I put my cleaning stuff away, and I came into my comfortable livingroom and put my laundry away. Small things. Small bites. But I chewed slowly, and I savored my day.
I feel better today and I apologize for yesterday's cranky nature.
