Letters From My Kitchen Table - The Turn

I don’t really remember when or where I turned.  Where it finally dawned on me the what and the why I effort in the way that I do.  There was no magic remembering or shock of realization.  No moment when the seas parted and “aha” echoed through the canyon.  It was more like sunrise.  The pink azure light slowly creeping into the day.  The warmth of the sun touching my bones.  It’s become clear to me today, my entire spiritual and human practice is turned now towards my household.

I often talk about this idea of household in the context of the skills of the place.  It becomes the backdrop of my daily life.  The set of the play currently on the marquis outside.  So.  It might be useful to wonder after just what this household is.  How is it that this place and these people are what and who I’ve turned towards in this life.

In these troubled times its easy to feel like my house is a small little bubble floating in a sea of other little bubbles.  Like the great mountain of bubbles that pours forth from the car wash bucket on a summer day.  All clustered together, but separate little bubbles.  It felt this way yesterday, while I was doing some work on my indoor lettuce patch.  Felt like it was just me in the house, disconnected from the other bubbles just next-door.  During the times when I feel isolated like this, my household is what pulls me back from the self isolated, what-about-me, brink.  My household is my counter weight to these feelings that I am alone.  

My household is not simply just my house.  It is a place full of people.  It is the very reason I get up in the morning and what is on my mind when I go to sleep.  My household is my purpose and my livelihood.  My household is my practice.

The place of my household is relatively easy to see.  Personally, I like to think of it’s beginning as the pillow I lay my head to sleep on every night.  My pillow being the usual start and stop of my day.  So it’s a good place to begin to see the center of the place.

The other side of my household can be found with a pin and a long string.  If I were to put a pin in my pillow and use my string to draw a circle twenty miles around, I’d find the outer edge of my household.  Most of my life is spent inside this circle.  Most of my practice happens here too.

Between my pillow and my circle, I live, laugh and love.  It is the place where I lose my mind.  Where I’m delighted by a flower or the taste of a delicious fried egg on an English muffin.  It is the place where all my practice and attempts to live my life well takes place.  This circle around my pillow is likely where I’ll die too.

Then there’s the people that live inside my 20-mile circle.  Everyone that is inside are all part of my household.  They are all part of my life, but harder to see than the space between my pillow and the end of my string.  I find that it’s best to see the people of this place as rings in the pond of this place.

When I was a kid I loved to skip rocks on just about any water I could find, still love doing that.  I also loved throwing rocks way up in the air.  That kerplunk sound a rock makes and the rings in the water, I find just delightful.  Those rings in the water are also useful in seeing the people of your household.

Lets start with you.  You being the rock.  You being the kerplunk.  Let’s start with your end, your death.  Let’s say a week from now, you are going to die.  Let’s put aside for the moment, that we suddenly arrived at this place of your death.  The house you woke up in this morning, being a prime candidate for this day of your death.  Now with your head on your pillow, the center of your household, let’s ask, who is in the room with you?

If we think about the people in your life as rings in the pond, these people who are in the room with you at your end, well they would be the first ring.  Then there’s the folks who you wanted to see before you closed your eyes for that final time.  The folks who would come to visit you as you approached the end of your days.  The ones, who would smile and say they’s see you again, when you both know that you wouldn’t.  They are the next ring.

Then there’s the folks that are in the living room or out on the lawn, just outside the four walls that hold your pillow.  The ones you want close, but not inside the room.  They are another ring in the water.  Maybe even the people you just want to give a piece of your mind to before you leave this world, maybe they’re there too.

There’s the people you work with, another ring, the young people you buy your coffee from, some who’s names you know, ones whose names you can’t remember and of course the ones who you’ve never asked them for their name, but that hand you your morning cup nonetheless, they’re yet another ring.  There’s your co-workers, your partner’s friends, the neighbor, the mail person, the guy in the car next to you at the light.  There’s the faces you see on social media or the ones in the “tiles” in a zoom call.  All rings in the pond of your household.  Small rings moving out and out and out until they finally reach the other shores of you life.  Touching everyone and everything that you have ever touched.  Touching even your ancestors, these rings of your life.  The close rings are easy to see, harder as the rings move outwards.

In my own life, the circle around my pillow and the rings of people inside are the reason and the context of all my spiritual and human practice.  When I begin to wonder after all the attempts I have made in my life to be a better person, a better friend, a better co-worker, a better “regular customer,” a better driver, a better husband I realize that it is and has been all for this place and these people. 

To say it more succinctly, all of my meditation, my yoga, my therapy, my kindness, my troubles, the books I’ve read, all of my attempts at simply being a good person in the world and all of my learning, all of this effort in my life, has been for this place and these people.  While I have been on the receiving end of my work in that I personally benefited from making all of my attempts, the work was never meant for me.  It was meant for my household.

Like I said, I’m not sure where or when my turn happened.  I’m not sure when I came to know this in my life, yet knowing it now in these troubled times has made all the difference in my life.  It is the counter weight to my feeling lonely or frustrated or mad or fill in the blank.  My household is the place where I can experience my individuality and easily see how I am connected to everything and everyone.  It is the place and the people that I have turned towards.  It is the place of my life.

May you find your turn too. 

Wings wide…

Raven