I confess: I haven’t been taking good care of myself lately.
Sometimes it’s just so easy to follow the routine, head down, going through the motions of work and errands, projects and obligations, to-dos and should-dos. Hitting the snooze button in the mornings, running late to work, letting the dishes pile up in the sink and the laundry stack up in the baskets, with (seemingly) no time to write my morning pages (or much of anything else), no chance to keep a tidy house or spend quiet evenings on the couch, reading or knitting and sipping tea. (J and I have been watching – and loving – copious episodes of Castle, though that’s currently on hiatus as he cheers the Rangers on in the World Series.)
Our Boston weather, and my internal weather, has been swinging wildly from one extreme to the next: clear skies and gorgeous autumn leaves one day, grey gloom and buckets of rain the next. When it’s like this, I start to shrug off the value of taking care; I start to neglect the things that keep me comforted, the little routines and lifesavers and the things I do to tend my house and my soul. And that means, among other things, a precipitous drop in comfort, my often-elusive one little word for the year.
The answer, as usual, is in the little things, the small shifts back toward the balance I crave. It’s in lighting a pretty candle in the evenings, in brewing a cup of tea at my desk, in taking a long walk at lunchtime. I’ve been remembering a phrase Jen used last year, and hearing it in my head like a nudge, a kindly imperative: pull back to gentleness. With myself, with my husband, with the way things are right now. And that means: no judgment, just acceptance. A letting go, and telling myself: it is enough.
It is enough, even while I think I should be doing so much more, to wash one sinkful of dishes, do one load of laundry, write one or two or three pages in my journal. It is enough to sink into this seasonal transition, to wrap myself up in cozy cardigans and a new red scarf, to cook simple meals and sit on the couch flipping through a magazine after dinner. It is enough to just be, just breathe, while I try to figure out a more nourishing routine for myself, a more rhythmic shape to my days. It is enough.
cakes, tea and dreams 