Enlightenment is Awesome - Housework

Am I alive or dead is irrelevant. I am here. In this space and in this time. In this moment. In this reality. Right here. So this is the moment, the time, the energy I need to concentrate on. I need to, WANT to, do my best at whatever it is I am doing here. Which, today, is laundry and dishes and sorting through the paperwork. Making a grocery list. Laughing at the squirrels. Letting the pounding of the reroofing (shingling?) pass over and away without annoyance. Without affecting me. Why should it affect me? It has nothing to do with me.

Did the women of the fairy tales whistle while they worked because that was their nature? Because they were making the best of things? Because they hoped day after day for an improvement? Or did they learn to be exuberant in their daily grind because every moment is an opportunity to do one’s best?

There’s rose colored glasses, and then there’s the cleared glass, seeing everything as what it is, accepting it, embracing it.

Easy for me to type. I am not abused, ordered around, treated like a slave. I chose to be the housekeeper for the next little while. But there is a difference between abuse heaped on by others, and abuse heaped on by self. Which, in a way, is what griping about difficult tasks appears, to me.

I make something harder by dreading it and bitching about it and stating all the reasons I don’t want to do it. I can, instead, choose to let it flow over me, either embracing the good points, or simply not let it affect me at all. What does affect me when I’m housecleaning? Singing. How well I do something. Being careful and aware about the various chemicals and where the cat is. The timing of the laundry. Finishing one project before starting another.

So what can I concentrate on? When I’ve finally found the proper pressure to scrub something clean, when I’m folding the laundry as I’ve done a hundred times before?

I can pay attention to how I’m standing. Use a ballet position, or a yoga one. I can pay attention to where my feet are placed, which hand is holding the scrub brush, how my shoulders hunch or don’t.

Keeping the stomach tucked in is healthy for more than health reasons. Because the core of one’s strength, one’s balance, one self is the diaphragm. Tucking it in, sucking it in, is good for strength as well as the waistline.

I can concentrate upon my breathing - though yoga type breathing may not be most appropriate for cleaning the toilet.

I can appreciate the texture of the clothes I’m folding, evaluate the cleanliness of the dishwater, notice the change in smells and even the energy of the room I’ve cleaned. Hmm. There’s many opportunities for wonderment in housecleaning.

I am the only person who decides how I do things. And I realize this philosophy doesn’t fit all situations, yet. Or does it? Shrug. The housework is what is before me today. Let us embrace the opportunity to practice acceptance. (sounds so high falutin, doesn’t it? But that makes me happy too.)

-Lila