Living is maintenance
Living is maintenance
The "work" is never done, me and the kitchen are kindred spirits, patience is becoming my second language
Lately, I’ve been contemplating on how the “work” is never done.
What is the work? The work is what we must physically do to get by day by day. To sustain and maintain life. That’s the work I’m talking about.
I found myself getting frustrated with the fact that I still had boxes to unpack after moving in a month ago, I have to clean up, I need gas in my car and the fact that the fridge is empty. Well the boxes won’t unpack themselves, the house is not a magic house that can will itself clean, the car isn’t driving itself all around town and the food damn sure isn’t eating itself. So why do I feel so frustrated about these natural occurrences of life?
Maybe because living is maintenance and the work won’t do itself.
November has been my most resourceful month as I’ve only visited the grocery store once and I hardly had money to spend. Everything is so pricey these days and it’s not hard to run up a check as the cashier says that’ll be $150. I look at the bags to see what I got and wonder well how did we get here and will this food last?
Well it didn’t. My appetite has changed and I’ve eaten myself out a house and a home. After it was all said and done I started making meals from whatever I had. Torn between feeling creative af and also broke af, I eventually found a sense of connection with those who came before me because all they ever did was work with what they had.
As I chop onions and shallots I feel my body relax into itself as my mind says
“This is trust, this is the moment”.
Everyday I find myself going into the kitchen more and more chopping, cutting, mixing, gathering, assembling and waiting.
Pots rolling, faucets runnings, oven timer beeping and I realized that I would be doing this for the rest of my life.
Being in the kitchen has become my friend. I had no idea we were kindred spirits. It’s a place of alchemy, creation and chaos. Just like me. Reminiscing on all the moments of love, and the conversations that have taken place in kitchens, looking back now, I see that the kitchen has always been this way. It took me being forced to spend less to discover this. Every timeI’m in the kitchen it reaches out arms wide and pulls me in for a hug giving me everything that I need.
I can feel patience becoming my second language
as every meal has always been about trusting the process but I was to busy with life to see it. I cooked a pasta one week ago that was disgusting. The sauce was labeled “Truffle picante”. I picked it up from trader joes knowing that I like truffle and I like spicy shit. Now I know that’s a flavor combination that I’ll be living without. At first I was annoyed, it’s not everyday I make a meal and hate it. I soon released my attachment to the meal, gave it to my boyfriend, sighed and said
“well at least I got to just relax and be at ease”
Slowing down enough to realize that being in the kitchen has become a radical act of care for myself is evolutionary. So many times I have seen being in the kitchen as a daunting task for my single mother who had to cook a meal after working 12 hours. I used to mimic that same sentiment after long days at work too only thing is I don’t have a child until I noticed how I come alive in the kitchen. Even recently when we were cooking for my friends birthday her cousin said. “Cooking is not fun to me, I cook to survive” I thought well how sad that must be to find absolutely no joy in cooking.
Then I remembered once upon a time, that was me.
I’m 6 months into entrepreneur not even close to leaving my job full time. I’m loosening my expectation of what this journey will be like because yes it is challenging.
Having less sometimes is equivalent to gaining more that’s what being in the kitchen has taught me.
I will forever respect life for humbling me and I’m so glad that living is maintenance and that the work is never done.
This week I had one question from the anonymous Q&A, leave your anonymous question here
Q: So sorry if this is TMI but I’ve been feeling really stressed out as of lately. I’ve been so anxious about my future… so in my head all the time but I’m at the point in my life where I want to get my mindset right. Can you provide me advice on how I can start?
A: First I want to say I appreciate your transparency it’s not TMI. Someone may benefit from this so Thank you. Life is hard and as of lately with the state of the world, things have been even harder. Since you mentioned mindset shift, I would encourage you to start a meditation/sitting in silence practice for 5 minutes a day so you can learn how to be with the mind as it is and all it’s chaos. Use google to gather information about meditation so you can see if it’s something you would like to do. After that I want you to write down 1 mindset goal you have for yourself no matter how big or small just be honest about it. Work at that goal in small ways everyday by meditating and learning to identify the voice of the thoughts that keep you further away from that goal. Go out into the work and implement change through action. Lastly, I want you to spend 5 minutes a day for 1 month dancing because mindset work is nothing without bodily integration. The dancing is to help you to get out of your head and into your body so you can know what it feels like to just be in the body. When you’re ready come join my Growing in Awareness:To love my whole self workshop I think you would enjoy the format and you’ll gain access to information about meditation, the body, & the breath all in one space. Hope this helps. I’m rooting for you.
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I cherish this perspective so much. I think there is something about being in a state of resourcefulness that encourages creativity larger than we've ever realised it; you really put it into language beautifully here. It reminds me of an affirmation that I love: I lack no thing. Grateful for your sharing.
I relate to so much of this. I've had to recently understand that the work will always be there and for some reason I felt that the work is "too much" for me to handle. That if I do work too much I may be so fragile that I shatter into tiny pieces. But I realized this is my fear talking, it's my ego speaking from having past work trauma and having no boundaries. Now I am in a season of trusting that doing the work is the churning of this journey... cleaning the house, cooking the food, editing the pictures, the list goes on.... Work keeps us going, growing, moving, flowing. I am working on finding more ways to fall in love with it more deeply than ever before.