I dropped my phone in a puddle yesterday morning. I was working dilligently to hold the umbrella over Frankie’s head whilst trying to keep the car door from banging into a cement pole (curse you Toronto side street parking!). In the melee my phone slipped and landed in a puddle where it sat submerged for the next three hours while we watched Frankie be a magi in the Christmas nativity play.
My husband comes to church every once in a while with us as an act of familial community building. I add this important detail here because I don’t think I would have dropped the phone had he not come. Because I would usually be driving on a Sunday morning, not him. But I couldn’t drive because I had left my glasses at my sister’s place the night before. And I only have that very large and cumbersome umbrella because a friend left it behind a few months ago and…this list of strange happenings just keeps going. A too-large umbrella, lost glasses, a dropped phone. All little moments of disconnect from my very routined ways of doing and being that have caused perturbations in the force (of my life!).
And now I’m here. Phoneless, calendarless, and really quite confounded by my reliance on a small machine. How distressing that a phone feels (this morning anyways) to be directly linked to my mental health.
I just finished teaching a course on coaching and mentorship, and in adult learning theory there is much written about the need for self-directed learning to solidify the experience of what is being taught. I’m always trying to learn from my students and the material I present them with, so here’s me practicing this process in real time:
As the phone sits in a bag of sushi rice on the counter top (healing??), I am going to attempt a reevaluation of my need for routine. This disruption is highlighting for me that it’s not just the big life changes, like a job shift or a move, that require patience and processsing to navigate. I’m going to try some of the relational reading that I write about in the hope that zen master Thich Nhat Hanh might be of some help.
Of emptiness he said:
Emptiness, signlessness, and aimlessness are keys to unlocking the door of reality. They are three essential contemplations that liberate us….
And of non-action he said:
Sometimes, through non-action, we can help more than if we do a lot.
Well, I’m definitely feeling empty handed at the moment, and though not aimless, I do feel somewhat lost without my daily compass in hand (curse you iCal!). If the lesson being shared by my zen teacher is resonating at all, I guess this Good Enough can be framed as my attempt to do less. While so many of the other newsletters and magazines are posting excellents lists of to-dos for the New Year or remembrances of 2023, my offering is much smaller. My hope for you is that your experience of disruption this season — however it comes to be — will proffer you a meditative moment of emptiness or non-action.
Stillness.
Whatever it is that you need.
Happy New Year and thanks for reading Good Enough!
xo Natalie
Kevin what a gift this comment is - thank you for sharing your memory of your mom and her roses. I’m down for a community garden project here on Good Enough 💛
Thank You N. for reminding us of the magical mystery surrounding the worth of nothingness...
When we look around us, and see the daily hustle and bustle or as I like to say - the 21st century ‘do more-with-less’ mindset, it’s hard to remember the importance of existing!
In the spring of 2006, in the year following my Mom loosing her life-long battle with heart disease, I was puttering with my perennials and shrubs and I reached the ‘rose garden’ she had helped me create (my thumb is green... just a dark shade, lol) when one of her many ‘Momism’s’ came to mind. “Kevin” she would say, “always remember, to take the time to (pause for effect here) really... (and again) smell (inhale deeply through your nose sound) the roses” (fyi… we did not have any roses when I was growing up). And I m, of course, would smile, and say something to the effect of... Mom... I promise to always take the time to smell the roses (think cheeky smile here).
But on that warm sunny day, while her words were not audible, but rather a memory of her past advice ingrained in my mind - I took the time needed to - really... listen... to the wisdom she had shared.
They were so fragrant and colourful- bright red, pinks, and yellows; They were just a small piece of our yard yet they were so... wonderful. It was worthy of the effort and I marvelled at the big picture she had tried to paint.
Life truly is a blessing. Being aware, and appreciative (another Momism for another day 🙂) is necessary to keep us pointed in the right direction.
In hindsight - assigning your sushi rice the additional responsibility of ‘de-puddling’ your organizational assistant (sorry/not sorry) is an early Boxing Day Blowout price to pay for the wonder/awe and beauty of having had the opportunity to spend a few hours watching Frankie in his magi debut is really just heeding my Mom’s (and I’m sure many others) rose advice…😉.
I think this week’s contribution, a few days before Christmas, is an amazing gift for us all…, definitely GOOD ENOUGH for me!
Best,
K.