There’s a Waterfall Inside My House
The opposite of death denial is not skipping over any moments of my life. Remembering that every moment is worth my attention. This doesn’t mean I will be able to fill every moment with my attention, or that I need to judge myself for not doing it. It just means that there is no moment of my existence on earth that is not worthy of my attention.
Bringing the light of awareness (and it really does function as LIGHT in my experience) to all moments, no exception. I had a realization yesterday afternoon about a typically neglected moment of my day, which happens every day, which is called, GETTING MY KIDS FROM THE CAR TO THE UPSTAIRS AND INSIDE OF MY HOUSE. Now this has historically been a time of my day which I hate. But I have not even noticed that I am living this part of my life in suffering, almost every day, until yesterday! The light of awareness visited me in this moment, and I saw anew! OOOOooooh. I have been pushing everyone, and every object, into something they are not. To be clear, I have been unsuccessful. I have been fighting with reality, and therefore, I lose 100% of the time. Which is the suffering, in this case.
My children are — breaking news — children! Therefore they have not successfully (blessed be) been conditioned to strive to be “efficient” as I have been, every moment of the day. They usually have a lot to do the moment I have an agenda about where they need to get to. Usually they have a part of a calla lily leaf halfway under a shoe on the floor of the car they urgently—yet in no way quickly—need to get before they go inside. Often they have a sticker on the back left window which they need to reapply or find a new place for. Sometimes they need to fight with each other, or me, about which door they will get out of, and who will get out of the preferred door first. Who knew there was so much to do between car and house! I didn’t, until these baby christ consciousnesses arrived in my life!
(For brevity, I am not covering all the things they like to do between the car and the house, which is an area of about 4-5 feet, or halfway inside the gate to our entry way.
My stress and aversion to these moments include me carrying way more than I can carry, because somehow, no matter how little we brought with us in the car, everyone has opened their backpacks, and there are at least 4-7 cans, crumpled pastry sleeves, lego pieces, “lasers” (ie sticks from the park), old art pieces, lonely socks, pirate’s booty pieces, pumpkin seeds, and way too many other things to list. Usually I am carrying their backpacks as a way to be “efficient” because asking them to grab them would involve us being in limbo for at least 139 more minutes.
A big part of the stress is that I can’t just leave them in the car, or outside of the car in front of the house, because strangers might harm them, and/or they might come in the house and not remember to close the gate, leaving an opening for said strangers who will harm them.
Another part of the stress is that I need to start making dinner, and I need to start helping my older kid with his homework, because he gets distracted 37 times per worksheet, and I need time to get mad inside that he has homework at all, because does anyone else have a hard time fitting homework in after school before bed, and isn’t the point of being at school for 7 hours to have time to learn the things that the homework is teaching? and because the kids need to take baths, and I need to get them in the bath early enough to not rush them out of the bath, and we need to get the reading in, and we need them to get to bed early so I can get to bed early and everyone will not be too tired for the moment in the morning when I need to get them back from the house to the car. And we have exactly two hours in which to do all of this, and I need to not seem too rushing or nagging, because if I am then what am I doing? How am I living my life?! What has happened if I am doing those things which are the things I never wanted my life to be?!
All of the above is the kind of unconscious suffering I put myself through when I don’t bring the light of loving attention to all of the moments of my life. But yesterday I remembered. Or rather, I felt visited by the light of awareness, we could also call this god, or nature, or any other name you’d like. And I noticed myself aka my mind starting to propel into pushing reality away from being reality. And I was standing outside of the car opening the door for my kids and I saw it. I saw the pushing, and I saw I didn’t have to do it. I don’t have to rush them at all. Because all will be well even if they take an hour to get out of the car. But the plot twist in this kind of deal (and my life is, I am realizing lately, basically made up of one of these plot twists after another) is that when I’m not trying to push reality, they get out in the perfect amount of time. Because there is no wrong time they take to get out, it’s always perfect, but it does tend to be more quickly. This paradox never stops feeling like a miracle to my everyday mind.
The next and final miracle I need to tell you about, the pulsing brimming opposite of death denial, occurred, as it often does, where most of my contact with god occurs, at my kitchen sink. Soon after I was visited by this new awareness about the car to house moment of my day, I was washing the dishes that don’t fit into the dishwasher, and I had just started the dishwasher. And my older kid was in the bath which shares a wall with my kitchen. I could hear the dishwasher, and the bath faucet, and the kitchen sink faucet.
I realized I was at the base of the most sacred waterfall which is in my own house. I almost wept, just feeling the water on my hands, and hearing the water coursing through our house. The aliveness of it, the power of it, the godness of it.
And I thought - how many people are in their houses receiving the absolute miracle of water running through their house right now and even maybe their hands, but too resentful or fearful or exhausted or anxious or troubled to feel it? How many hours and days and years of my life have I been too resentful or fearful or exhausted or anxious or troubled to feel it?
I’m feeling it now. I’m inviting you to feel it with me now.
What is supporting you that you forget to notice, and what happens to you when you notice it again?!
with piles and piles of love and gratitude for being here with me on planet earth,
Sarah