zen & the art of pottering about

I've written before about how different our weekend mornings are now in comparison to the pre-kids days.

We've never been particularly good at getting up and out of the house in a hurry and I recall many, many a childless Saturday morning spent pottering about the house doing deeply domestic and fairly arb chores. A little hand-washing, sorting a drawer, tea, some de-cluttering, a cuddle with the cats, more tea, tackling those miscellaneous and dodgy tupperwares in the back of the fridge etc etc etc.
Looking back I've sometimes wondered whether I should have used that time more wisely, or at least more excitingly, but recently I realised the truth of that domestic downtime. I think there was a lot more happening in those lazy weekend hours then I imagined at the time.

This week I had that extremely rare and delicious experience of a whole morning (3 hours at least) alone at home. Completely alone.
I forced myself away from the computer and just ... pottered.

A little hand-washing, sorting a book shelf, drinking tea, packing away some out-grown clothes (theirs, not mine!), petting a cat. Flowing freely through my home without having to speak, without really having to think.
Except I did.
And the things I found myself thinking about were disconnected to what my hands were doing, they were things I needed to think about, reflect on, process.

Last week I attended a wildly stimulating and transformational UCT Summer School course, led by Chris Breen. Over three mornings each session was packed with insights, ideas, revelations.
I was deeply envious each day as we regrouped and my fellow attendees (mainly childless) spoke about what they'd thought about the previous afternoon, after the morning class. Each day I had left the course and plunged headlong into the school run, lunch, play, chaos etc, leaving no time for reflection or processing.

But during my blissful morning alone at home this is where my thoughts had turned. And with my hands occupied by comforting familiar domestic tasks I found that space to download, examine what I'd learned and think about ways to implement these lessons into my life.

I realised then that this is what I'd been doing with those long and seemingly 'wasted' weekend hours of old. Processing my week, reflecting on experiences, filing and organising my thoughts and feelings.

Life with children is so busy, and so ... loud - both inside my head and without - that it's easy to just ... live. That 'in the moment' practise which people seem to strive so hard to attain is a standard for me. I live each moment in the moment and then move on to the next one, but what I neglect is finding the time to rewind and live those moments again, to glean from them the necessary truths and insights.

Blogging does that for me yes, but so it seems, does hand-washing. Note to self: buy more silk.