I come inside after gazing at the newly opened iris, the season’s first, just in time to catch a conversation floating from the laptop on my kitchen table. “Happiness,” Mo is saying, “isn’t about getting what you want.” He pauses slightly and smiles. “It’s about loving what you have.” (How could we not!) Quietly, words from a card pinned above my desk flow through my mind: “Look around you. Appreciate what you have. Nothing will be the same in a year.” I look around, my eyes brushing everything with thanks so deep it nearly spills right over the brim.
I was sorting through the little stack of papers that accumulates on the corner of my desk no matter what I do. I call it my Perpetual Paper Pile. It has the magical ability, I believe, to regenerate itself if I set aside one little piece of paper to deal with ‘later.’
But that aside, I discovered a little treasure in the heap, an index card with a power question written on it. “How easy can I let this be?” it said.
Think about that for a minute. If you take them one little step at a time, few things are difficult in and of themselves. It’s our straining that makes them seem so, or our having made a judgment somewhere along the line that we don’t like to do whatever it is we’re doing.
The day after I found the card, a friend of mine who had strained her upper back asked me if I could do a little ironing for her. She hated to ask, but her husband was going on a trip and really needed the shirts.
Now, I have to tell you that ironing is my number one most-despised household task. One of my first jobs as a teenager was doing housework for a family that included five kids. Laundry was a daily task, and the wife saved the ironing for me. Back in those ancient days, permanent press fabric was just working its way onto the market and it was still in its less-then-perfected stage. If you wanted wrinkle-free clothing, you had to iron it. And irons were heavy pieces of equipment back then, far from the feather-weight ones that we use today.
Well, the wife didn’t just want the shirts and blouses, dresses and slacks pressed, she wanted smooth underwear and handkerchiefs, bed sheets and pillow cases, too. So I often spent five hours of my work days doing nothing but ironing. After a summer of that, I didn’t want ever to see an iron again.
Of course I do still iron a few items now and then. But it’s far from my favorite task, and when my friend asked me to do some ironing for her, I cringed inside as I agreed to help her.
Then I remembered the card. “How easy can I let this be?” Hmmm. I could let it be as easy as I wanted. I could even let myself look at it as an interesting task if I chose to do so.
I still wouldn’t want to hire myself out to do ironing every day. But ironing for my friend turned into an easy and satisfying job, thanks to the insight I got from that question.
The next time you’re faced with a job you don’t want to do, or that intimidates you in some way, or that makes you feel pressured, ask yourself how easy you can let it be. The question’s power lies in the fact that it prompts you to own your essential competence. It reminds you that you are in control of your attitudes. You can chose to let some old, unquestioned judgment run you, or you can choose to approach the task with a sense of relaxed ease and fresh eyes.
Not only does that make the work more pleasant, but it allows you to approach it with a more spacious mind. You work more efficiently and effectively. You see solutions that you wouldn’t see if you were feeling disgruntled or anxious or stressed. And as icing on the cake, once the task is completed, your mind is more open to taking genuine satisfaction in your accomplishment of it.
That’s a pretty worthwhile gift from one tiny little question. “How easy can I let this be?” Write it on a card or sticky note to remind you to ask it. See if it doesn’t iron some wrinkles out of your days.
When I wake to a fresh blue sky and the morning is dazzled with emerald leaves dancing on a cool breeze that carries the scent of white lilacs and the songs of countless birds, joy floods my being, and I know that all the highest promises are true and all the coming hours are blessed, whatever they may hold.
They stand for nothing, not for a price or a system, nor for any particular position, or concept or creed. They obey only the law of their being: Flower freely. And so they show their colors, and feed the ants and bees, and decorate the roadsides, and dance in the morning breeze, asking nothing, simply being, and singing their songs. And when the stars rise and twinkle above them, they dream sweet dreams, and their hearts are filled with joy.
Look what she’s done now! As if the crocuses and tulips, the daffodils, violets and speedwell weren’t enough, as if we weren’t already joy-struck with the magnolias and the blossoming of apple trees, cherry and pear, now May spreads the field with red poppies and wild phlox. She dresses every day with new garlands from her basket, laughing her love songs, whispering Happy Birthday to the earth. Such limitless generosity! And all we can do is marvel and be glad.
Imagine the thrill of learning that you get to do the very last dance. “Leave them laughing,” the teacher said. “Let them be filled with gaiety whenever the thought of a tulip crosses their minds.”
And donning her white ruffled petticoat and a swirling cape of clear red, the season’s last tulip did just that.
The wild raspberry blossoms are opening now, great vines of them cascading in long arches down the hill, secrets hidden inside, secrets that will turn them into tart, sweet, juicy red globes. The birds and I keep eager watch, singing our chant to bring the magic on. Oh, bring them, little blossoms. Bring them. Bring them. Bring them.
There’s something to be said for humility. Take the little white violets, for instance. They don’t shout. They don’t mind that they’re not as tall as the grass, or as bright as the dandelions, or purple, like their cousins. They don’t worry whether anyone notices them or not, whether the sun shines or the rain falls. They simply open their sweet little petals, perfume the air, and say to each other, “Isn’t it a lovely day!”
When people look at my photos of you, they say, in a kind of reverential tone, “Reminds me of my grandma,” and they get the sweetest smiles on their faces, remembering. I don’t know if anyone ever told you, and I thought you might like to know.
As I was thinking about what I wanted to share with you today, I remembered that it’s Mother’s Day here in the States. For me, it’s a day filled with happy and meaningful memories of a woman whose character I find myself appreciating more and more deeply with every passing year. I genuinely hope that you can say the same, and that, if your Mom is still living, you’ll tell her so.
The thought occurred to me that in today’s climate of speech policing, this day set aside for honoring mothers will probably soon become “Parents’ Day” or “Caregivers’ Day” or some such thing. But that’s a topic for another time.
Right now, it’s still “Mother’s Day,” and I asked myself what the essential quality is that all mothers share. I had to think about it for a while, because mothers, being human after all, span the whole spectrum from “bad” to “good.” But I think I finally put my finger on it–at least if we set the truly pathological ones aside.
The one thing all mothers do, the one quality that behooves us to be grateful for them, is that they nurture us. Even the most disadvantaged ones, the most disinterested, the most careless, did what was needed to keep us alive. Even if that meant, in some cases, giving us away. Here we are; they did what it took to make that happen.
For the ones who did the bare minimum, let’s use this day to offer them our forgiveness and compassion. They don’t know what they missed. And they did the best they could.
And for the ones who took the time and spent the energy not only to feed, clothe, and house us, but to nurture us with an abundance of love, let’s take the time to reflect that love back to them, whether they’re still with us or not.
Let’s think about what they nurtured in us—what they taught us to value and appreciate, how they instilled manners in us and showed us ways to successfully negotiate in the world, how they passed on traditions so we would feel linked to the past, how they said that the only thing they wanted was for us to be happy in our lives and how they did all they knew to do to make that possible. Let’s think about the pride they took in our achievements, and their unqualified forgiveness when we fell short of the mark, about the way they comforted our hurts and celebrated with us our moments of joy, about how they instilled in us the meaning of the word “home.”
Let’s think about the sacrifices they made for us, the events they attended they didn’t want to attend, the things they did without in order to serve our wishes and needs, the fulfillment of some of their own dreams so that some of ours had a chance to come true.
That’s an awful lot for one human being to be able to do for another. And the wonder of it is that most moms–and stepmoms, and foster and adoptive moms–consider it a privilege and wouldn’t trade their roles for anything in the world.
It kind of gives you hope for the world, doesn’t it?
Wishing you a day of happy and grateful reflection about the special nurturers who mothered you. And if you are a mom, thanks from all of us for all you so tirelessly do.
