These have been a challenging few months for me, and I’m doing my best to work through things that stretch back decades. Throughout this journey, however, I’ve attempted to take things one little step at a time. Focusing on the end result or the larger picture had previously been my modus operandi, but lately that has failed me. And really, that’s no way to go through life. You end up missing out on the present moment, all the little day-to-day, minute-to-minute joys that you could, and perhaps should, be savoring. I don’t want to rush through it all just to die at the end wondering what the hell happened. In an effort to be more present, I’ve been looking into mindfulness and meditation as a way to calm the rush of our daily life. That begins with learning to appreciate the beauty and the gratitude in the mundane. My introduction to that philosophy is just taking place, as I’ve started reading ‘The Miracle of Mindfulness’ by Thich Nhat Hanh. One has to begin somewhere…
In the first chapter, the author goes into the idea of ‘washing dishes to wash the dishes’. The act was the goal, and the focus should be solely and completely on the act itself – not the idea of getting to sit down and rest afterward, not on the image of a completed pile of dishes done and dried and put away. It should be a simple act of being wholly present and inhabiting the moment. Unsure if I could find such peace in dishes, I put a different spin on it and tried to make a mindful shower.
It was after a restless night of troubled sleep. Awakened by an ice storm, and the tiny pings and ticking of ice against the windows and roof, I thought of being more mindful and putting the troublesome burdens that weighed upon my mind into the background. With the electricity going on and off a few times, and the repeated hammering of ice on the windows, it felt like our home was under attack from outside forces. I’ve always been sensitive to such attacks, and they’ve filled me with unease. I decided to try some mindfulness to get out of that muck.
For the next few minutes, I would focus only on the shower, wishing mindfulness for myself, as well as all others, sending out a wish into the universe that everyone taking a shower feels the same connection to the moment. I wasn’t sure I could be that empathetic, or if it would feel as false and hokey as I thought it might, but as I stepped into the warm stream of water, I did my best to wish wellness to everyone else. A hot shower is a luxury I’ve never taken for granted.
I rolled the soap in my hands, paying attention to the resulting foam, the way it started awkwardly then turned smooth and easy. For the first time, I stood there and actually felt the warmth of where the water was hitting me. I connected to it, and a few worries were displaced by the feeling. Tilting my head back, I felt the warmth roll over my face and neck. Wetting my hair, the water immersed me completely in its heat. It traveled down my shoulders and back, rounding my elbows and running down my arms. I turned and felt it travel over my lower back and butt, racing down my legs and splashing about my feet.
The conditioner in my hair smelled of green tea and cucumber. It was a pleasant scent, one on which I never really focused much. It had only ever been a way of making my hair easier to comb. On this morning, I made note of its texture, the way it smoothed out every strand of hair, and how sweetly it smelled. I felt its silkiness as I massaged it out with streams of warm water. What indulgence exists in such heat and sensual pleasures. This wasn’t some obscenely expensive bottle of Tom Ford, this wasn’t some decadent spa in a five-star hotel. This was the mundane ritual of a morning shower, suddenly imbued with significance and meaning and joy. Another troubled thought flew fleetingly across my mind, but I did my best to return to the task and moment at hand.
A bar of unscented goat milk soap swirled in my hands. I cupped the foam over my body, feeling the skin running smoothly against more skin, aided by the bubbles, loosening the remnants of the night. I bring it to my nose to smell the scent of clean – there’s no other way to describe it – and I become conscious of my efforts to make a mental note of things. I don’t yet know if that’s bad or good, so I let it be, and go back to focusing on the act of the shower. Washing my face, I relax into the feeling of fingers on my cheeks and forehead, then arch my head back and simply allow the warmth of the water to flow over my eyes and nose and lips and chin.
After switching the water off, the fluffiness of a simple white towel engulfs me. I try to make note of every fiber soaking up moisture, the way my skin dries, still warm from the shower. There is a feeling of peace. It goes away shortly after I rush back into the morning routine, and worries and concerns of the day and previous night return, but the experiment had been a success. It was possible to be mindful. It was possible to bring deliberate purpose and pause to something as mundane as taking a shower. I understood it was only a beginning, and just a glimpse of the realm of what might be, and that was enough.
