A Still Life

I don’t know how it began, but sometime in the past several weeks I made a deal with myself to clean the kitchen for 15 minutes before sitting down to unwind. If folks are coming over, I can clean this house. If I am having a party, I can prepare this house for a grand welcome. If guests are coming to stay, I will fluff those linens and lay out those monogrammed towels. But in the day-to-day of life, particularly this mother-of-two life, cleaning after bath and bed routine has seemed like such a chore. 

All of a sudden, though, it is as though I’m bounding down the stairs to clean. I realized that 15 minutes turns the house around but also that the time settles me. A friend of mine often tweets about her practice of sweeping and the way it pulls her into a mindfulness of the present. For me, my evening kitchen cleaning seems to wash the day away, calm my mind, still my breath, and then opens up room for keeping company with husband for a while after he gets our boy to bed. Instead of feeling like a compulsive chore or a dreaded duty, it is much like preparing the home for company.

In the 15 minutes, sometimes 20, of wiping, washing, putting away, straightening, I am silent. No one asks for me. No one climbs my legs. No one needs anything. I am alone with my thoughts or the simple rhythm of my body. My reward is this moment right now: the boys are almost done. The girl is asleep. All is quiet.

Reflecting as I cleaned tonight, I was reminded of the first time I read Brother Lawrence’s The Practice of the Presence of God. I was 18, had just finished my first year of college, and was volunteering at a Young Life camp on 2,200 acres in Appalachia. I was one of five bakers, and we rose early in the morning to prepare all the camp’s rolls, bread, cookies, pies, and other desserts. We quickly learned our part, adjusted to baking in pounds instead of cups, and moved in unison rhythm. The head of the kitchen staff would often remind everyone that the camp was putting God’s name on the experience that teenagers would have that week, and if we were to put God’s name on it, then every part of the camp must be excellent. I gained ten pounds in one month; it was excellent.

I picked up that little green book tonight and will re-read the conversations and letters from Brother Lawrence as I reflect on my new, unintentional ritual. It is something to have turned this corner and to celebrate the small, quiet ways in which I find balance and a satisfying solitude.