Little Things
I have been accused of doing things the hard way.
This is a bold admission, I realize, for someone who markets her ability to streamline spaces and processes.
Holistically, I engage in a process of streamlining the superfluous so that one can engage in the meaningful. It’s what I appreciate about my favorite food writer, Alison Roman. She omits common steps from her recipes — no peeling carrots or bathing beans in ice after they’ve been steamed — but recommends hand-crushing stewed tomatoes into a sauce for the delight, in process and on the plate. Her directions for making pie dough advise you to run your fingers through the floury mix, as you would someone’s hair.
The accusation was based on my bent towards hands-on, involved processes: grinding my coffee beans every morning to make an espresso on the cooktop, mixing dough by hand instead of in food processor, employing cloth diapers and elimination communication when my daughter was tiny…
Here’s the thing: in the short-term, any one of those processes does look more time-consuming, more labor-intensive. When I step back, I have to disagree, though. My nervous system craves the real, the handmade, and the subtly textured. Arguably, all of our systems do: this is why nature soothes. The French acknowledge this as they prioritize le petit plaisir, the little pleasures, throughout the day. There’s a satisfaction in the process, a soothing that happens when I get those little reminders to get out of my head, engage in the moment, remember that I’m alive. It’s a way of letting go the inherent stress of a distracted mind, and instead feeling just a bit of the peace of mindfulness, of engagement. An engaged, peaceful mind is focused. When we’re not flitting around like sparrows, it’s a lot easier to get things done — quickly. And we don’t need such long breaks to recalibrate and get back to work. A vehicle goes so much more efficiently when the brakes aren’t on. Same principle.
So, in this, I submit, the slow processes themselves are actually faster because they allow for that magical flow-state, or at least a taste of it. But beyond that, modern life’s conveniences can actually be more complicated. I’m happy I have a Cuisinart and a vacuum, but I am loathe to drag them out, plug them in, and deal with all the clean-up and maintenance. Sometimes a mixing spoon or a broom are just faster. My kiddo was reliably running around in real undies at 15 months. That’s a lot faster than the modern path.
But the truth is that my life, and certainly the lives of most of us, don’t allow for a slow-living approach to every moment of the day. Over time, my coffee ritual morphed from espresso to drip, then to pre-ground, and now my morning comfort-brew is a barley substitute that just requires a bit of warm water. As the mornings began to compress, that originally soothing sequence shifted from comforting to complicated. I simultaneously figured out that caffeine was not helping to calm during the rest of the day. I still break out the grinder and beans when a friend comes over, or I want a special treat, though. That’s the right balance for this moment.
So, it’s not about the tasks themselves. Nary a one is infused with magic. The magic is in the mindfulness, the engagement. This is such freeing news, because it allows us to let them go as time’s sands shift our situation. We can lift our heads when we find our noses have fallen to the grindstone, look around at what else is at hand to feed our senses. Perhaps that corner that catches the sun’s rays just right at the hour of onerous computer work? And the table whose paint and wood have been worn just right? That pairing might just work… to help you work. Employ them.
Instead of feeling frustrated, shaking our fists at the sky when we stumble upon a can’t in our most cherished routines, we can take this as a cue for change. When we let go the loss of circumstance, what siren songs whisper from other cozy corners of our lives? In a world full of FOMO, we can confidently cocoon in our personal sancta of soothing spaces and sequences, knowing that it’s not about the event or the ritual or the place, or even the people in themselves. We can know that the engagement, the connection, the flow provide the peace. We can embrace what is, delight in the details.
The little things…
— AH