Grains, yours and mine

“On a summer morning
I sat down
on a hillside
to think about God–

a worthy pastime.
Near me, I saw
a single cricket;
it was moving the grains of the hillside

this way and that way.
How great was its energy,
how humble its effort.
Let us hope

it will always be like this,
each of us going on
in our inexplicable ways
building the universe.”

~ Mary Oliver, Song of the Builder

---

I threw down a to-do list yesterday.

I lived by the dreaded to-do once upon a time, but somewhere along the days of 2024 I lost the need, at least the constant and desperate need. (Let’s be honest, I just fell into the techno-rabbit hole and asked Google Tasks to step in as my brain.) Something about the slow and deliberate dive into the New Year, however, left me with a swelling list of ‘things’ weighing on my brainspace, and I had no desire to utter ‘Hey Google.’

I had a clear job ahead of me yesterday, but all those little niggling things were just dancing around in front of me, and I was getting dangerously close to that familiar feeling of drowning, my breathing shallowing, my body curving suspiciously inward, my chest crushed just the tiniest bit, by the tiniest of elephants. I was wandering the house like that cricket, moving the grains of my hillside this way and that way (I give the cricket more credit though, that he was actually up to something important). I reached for my mom book and let it all flow out onto paper. All those little dancing bits lining up in neat little columns. I watched the elephant trot off, gleefully in search of his mommy, and I set to the task at hand, the whole world a brighter, lighter place. (One could argue I just moved my hillside onto paper where I could feel better about it. One would not be wrong. You build your universe; I’ll build mine.)

Ah, the blessing of a good list.

Stubbornly refusing my perfectly rational habit of first migrating the remains of the last list into the latest generation, I started from scratch, the pressing needs of today, or this week. OK, the pressing needs of January. Maybe Q1. No particular order. The afternoon’s meal plan and grocery list just as worthy as the laying out of the year’s PTO and travel plans. The fixing of the tent zipper before spring sproings upon us, right alongside the need to finally put those tie dyed Keens back on ebay where they belong.

Then I caved to the carryover list, starting a new column headed suchly (this should be a word, and now it is). I waded back through many pages of mom-brain activity until I found the last written list. I speak only truth, it was dated 1/1/2024. Sheesh. This list was, thankfully, mostly crossed off, but still held the shameful vestiges of jobs not done. The savings bond I was tasked with tracking down by my mother-in-law sometime in 2023. The Fit recall we were notified of upon transfer of ownership in early 2021. The neighbors we’ve been meaning to visit with for just as long. I dutifully filled out my second column. I suspect that you can just barely imagine how horrifying it is to have to transfer that Fit recall over to yet another list.

And then, for reasons I can’t pinpoint, I decided to write out, in the 3rd and final column, a list of practices. Ongoing intentions, aspirations, things that are a critical part of my functional life, or that are currently under consideration for the future betterment of me. (These are the important grains of life that our little cricket was moving to and fro, I am certain.)

I guess I can pinpoint the reason, now that I think about it. In column one, near the bottom as things were fizzling out, I wrote EAT BETTER. This is not really something that will culminate in that satisfying crossing out that a good to-do list offers. This was of a different sort. We needed a new category, and it became apparent that there are plenty of other things that deserve to be on that list.

In addition to a better place to pen the desire for prioritization of our food intake (GOOD FOOD!), I must admit that I have also noticed a distinct uptick in the non-negotiable practices of the day. Thought I might lay them out to assess their numbers.

There are the old-timers, of course. The meditation practice and the gratitude practice, the care and upkeep of the body practices (all 396 of them), the walking and the reading and the writing. But I’ve been drawing in new micro-practices like gravity these days, and it struck me that possibly they were going to outgrow my days. No, it struck me that they were, indeed, outgrowing my days. There’s the One Beautiful Thing, and there’s that piggyback 1″x1″ wonderhabit. It’s going well, by the way. Thanks for asking.

See the tie-dyed Keens there in the corner?

Last year I started following Chet Raymo’s fantastic book on the stars above, dragging my bundled self out into the sub-zero yard each night to watch as his theater unfolded. This never took much time, but by April or May, as the nights dipped further along the timeline of the day, I started opting for a quick show and my bed over keeping up with the heavens. I love that book, and I want to start it again. Add that to the list.

I’ve been re-learning Spanish (the Costa-Rican car rental man says I’m a wonder), and now have a pressing desire to learn ASL. I’ve been enjoying number puzzles and word puzzles and logic puzzles to keep my youthful brain youthful (not to mention watercolor… wow, is that not how I think). I know a little Tai Chi and want to know a lot. My yoga practice could use some invigorating. Our youngest has deigned that we undertake a small series of squats after every meal, to kick the metabolism into gear and stave off Alzheimers (I’m not sure if she insists on this for our benefit or hers). A few deep breaths before each meal will further push dementia down the road. I’ve been working on claiming my early mornings, rather than claiming my warm bed. I blog. We need to eat more plants. I’m thinking of starting a warm beverage ritual involving cocoa and mushrooms. As you can see, the list of practices is winding up longer than the actual list of to-dos.

“If we continue to practice this way over the months and years, we will feel our hearts and minds grow bigger. When people ask me how long this will take, I say, ‘At least until you die.’”
~ Pema Chodron, The Places That Scare You

---

Ani Pema is talking about training in equanimity here, but she could be talking about anything which expands our universe.

And that is, for me, the definition of a practice, I guess. The slow and steady insistence towards the expansion of my universe. Anything that I can do on the daily (or, semi-daily) to keep myself in the stream. To stay tuned in. To embrace it all. One. Step. At. A. Time.

Thankfully, I have learned of late, that they all can’t fit in a day. I’ve been developing the skills needed to juggle all the practices over the course of the days, pushing off here and pulling in there, keeping all the plates spinning, at least for a little while. And now I’m learning to winnow the stacks, and check my motivations and what I take home from each little thing that I love. You could go crazy with all there is to learn and do and grow into, and I’m working on making careful choices, furthering the practices that serve best today, letting go of those that have run their course.

Don’t worry. I crossed off Clean One Cupboard a Day as fast as I wrote it.