The Miracle of the Mundane: Why I'm Paying Attention to Ordinary Moments
I've been thinking a lot lately about routines. When I think back, throughout my life I've had something of a fraught relationship with routines. Part of me loves them: morning coffee ritual, long walks on the weekends, unwinding while watching Jeopardy on weeknights, the five o'clock commute home, or even the larger scale cyclical routine of seasons changing. I also would definitely describe myself as organized and detail-oriented which goes along with my penchant for and enjoyment of routines.
However, there's also a more whimsical, spontaneous part of me that thrives off the excitement of a wide open day that could take any turn. The possibility life offers can motivate me and give me energy.
I've always felt this dichotomy, and I believe there are pros and cons to leaning into routines and to embracing spontaneity. Becoming a mom has made me reflect on this even more as flexibility has become not only an option but a necessity.
Rather surprisingly, I've found that having a baby to care for has not seemed to restrict my time. It has undoubtedly changed my routine, but with the changes have come a new experience with time.
For example, small things have felt like greater accomplishments. Simply getting myself and baby dressed and ready for the day seems like a victory. So does making dinner or going on our (almost daily--weather permitting) walks or runs (Bob Rambler running stroller for the win!). As my daily routines have shifted I've found little gaps of time to fill with productivity. A short nap from Grayson means a quick load of laundry; a middle-of-the-night nursing session means I can read a few chapters (ebooks have been my new best friend and have allowed me to keep up with my reading goal so far this year).
As fellow parents will know, having a baby means that much of your day is unpredictable. He may nap or he may not, and if he naps, you might have an hour or you might only have 15 minutes. He may need many diaper changes or only a few on any given day. One day he may fuss a lot and another day he may sit in his little rocker ever-so-content.
I had thought this unpredictability would be extremely difficult for me, and at times it is, but overall I am finding that fitting in my career-work, household chores, exercise, etc. in the gaps has actually given me a greater sense of fulfillment. And when I do have bits of open time throughout the day (or night) I am more inclined to fill them with something worthwhile--not necessarily always something "productive," but at least something needed, whether that is rest, reading, exercise, writing, chores, or simply sitting with my thoughts.
This month marks one year since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and as I think back to last year, I'm reminded of what routines have changed and which ones have remained the same. Last year at this time I was a few months into my first work-from-home experience (not COVID-related). Little did I know that work-from-home would become so commonplace. In fact, just last week I accepted a job offer for a new position that is also remote.
Spring in central Virginia tends to arrive a bit earlier than the calendar says it will arrive. Last year at this time the Bradford Pear in front of our house and those around Fountain Lake were in full blossom, the azaleas in our yard were beginning to bloom, Vinny and I were ramping up our running after the winter, we were grilling out almost every day, and Tiger King was the top-rated show on Netflix.
This year, spring is slower. I know this because our Bradford Pear tree and those around Fountain Lake are barely beginning to blossom and it's nearing the end of March, the azaleas in our yard aren't anywhere near blooming, and neither are my tulips. My daffodils and crocuses in the front garden have been a harbinger of early spring, and this year I will remember looking out the front door and holding my baby close while I point out the splashes of yellow and purple.
Having a baby has also made me realize that I--and I believe anyone--is capable of adapting. I've also been thinking about work and how this relates to schedule and routine. Having a baby has made me more aware that work is so much more than the hours you spend in an office, a vehicle, a factory, or a field. Being a stay-at-home and work-from-home mom (a dynamic which I'm so grateful for!) has made me view work as much more integrated with life in general than I ever have before. In any given day I might go from changing diapers to checking my email to nursing my baby to going on a run with baby in the stroller to cooking dinner to wiping down the bathroom to working on a freelance article to paying a doctor's bill to grocery shopping. I always thought I would dislike not having a clear separation between work and the rest of life, but perhaps that is a false dichotomy. Caring for a little human is absolutely hard work, but it's a different kind of work. I'm not counting down the hours till five o'clock or struggling through monotony. My little one is his own person and is constantly changing and growing and bringing joy as well as challenges to my life, and I have found that this work of nurturing him has strengthened my career work of creating content. It's given me greater focus and resolve in the moments I do have time to write and it has made me more grateful for this work, as well as given me deeper compassion and empathy--two qualities that are highly underrated for writers.
I don't know what kind of year 2021 will be. I do know we will do many of our normal activities--walking to get ice-cream, watching Little League at the park in our neighborhood on Saturday mornings, sipping drinks in our front porch Adirondack chairs, working on house and garden projects--and simply bring baby boy along for the ride as part of our family. We also have some trips planned--our second family trip to the Outer Banks for the 4th of July, a trip to California for a wedding, tentative trips to visit family. Some of these trips, like trips to visit family and our OBX trip, will become part of our little family's routine for years to come, and I anticipate my son eagerly looking forward to them.
There is a constant balance between what we as humans can plan and the way things play out, and this year is a year of being okay living in that liminal space. Perhaps it's not so different than the "already-but-not-yet" we as people of faith are used to living within.
Routines are also closely tied to memory which is interesting to me as someone who is deeply nostalgic. After all, our days are primarily comprised of the mundane. Though the big events may be memorable, it is the routine tasks that comprise the bulk of our lives. When we look back via memory, it is often the ordinary that is transformed by nostalgia into something more meaningful than it may have meant in the moment, something with deeper significance than we could have predicted.
I recently read Danish author Meik Wiking's book The Art of Making Memories, and in it he quotes Samuel Johnson, the British writer who compiled the Dictionary of the English Language in the eighteenth century, who said, "The true art of memory is the art of attention."
Perhaps someday we will no longer live on Grayland Ave, but I will remember the smell of our Bradford Pear, the way the afternoon sunlight slants into our living room in liquid gold, the sound our front door makes when it closes, or the feel of our back deck beneath my bare feet. These things are mundane now, but time and distance may make them more than they now seem. Which reminds me to pay attention now to the little things, the seemingly insignificant or routine things.
These are the things I am trying to remind myself of during midnight nursing sessions, mornings when I've been trying to simply empty the dishwasher for the past three hours, uneventful weekday walks when it's overcast, bringing baby out onto the deck while I listen to spring training games and plant the season's first tiny seeds, or having late-night pillow talks with my husband even though we both know it will mean we will be extra tired in the morning.
It is these moments that I am trying to pay attention to, because it is moments like these that are forming my life; it is moments like these that will be converted into memories and will subsequently become part of my story.
The breakdown of the sacred-secular divide means that all of life is important and has potential to glorify God. When I consider this, it reminds me that these routine moments are injected with an earthy holiness that Jesus embodied when he fed the 5,000 with the loaves and fishes, instructed the parents of the girl he raised from the dead to give her something to eat (Luke 8:55), or used down-to-earth examples of daily life in his parables.
What will I most remember when I think back on this season of life? I can't be for sure--the mind and heart are funny that way. But if I recognize that it may very well be the routine things, the ordinary things, the slow unfolding of spring, of a little life, I think I will be glad I paid attention.
Comments