Yesterday a young woman told me that she had read the thought, love the question, for the first time. Love the question. Of course. All of our questions are part of the balance of life. A question whose answer will follow eventually in the natural unfolding, is another sign of unfolding to the new. In loving the question, one finds a sense of peace. All simply is. All is an “Of course”. In that there is no stress or worry, simply being again.
Two days before our vacation this year, we were keeping my son and daughter-in-law’s Australian Shepherd puppies. They are two lively nine month olds, looking into everything and running gleefully to the next possibility for discovery without a pause in between. The mix of those two with our two older dogs and two cats is nonstop activity, frequently needing some guidance or rescue. And in the middle of that commotion with a long list to accomplish before vacation time, I sat and made doll clothes for our granddaughter’s doll. With dogs and cats and various odds and ends scooting everywhere, there I was at the dining room table, in the middle of it all, with the sewing machine set up, sewing doll clothes. And I loved it, and laughed about it, and laughed even more with delight when my husband expressed amazement at how I could do it.
Frankly, I wondered myself a little bit at how I could do it. I think, though, that the commotion outside was some expression of the commotion that I had created inside. I had been working on a number of vacation projects, plus my own work, plus getting things around the house ready for us to go. I had been ignoring my internal commotion in order to keep on going with my lists. But on this day, with the commotion moved externally, there was really nothing for me to do, but stay calm in the center. Calm enough to make doll clothes, something unnecessary, made only by someone with the luxury of peaceful time. Calm enough to sew and laugh at what was going on around me. It all made perfect sense. Create enough chaos outside and the only option is to go crazy or find calm inside in which to remain present with the joy of the moment. I chose calm and joy.
Long ago, when I was college age I visited a college friend’s family with her. Rosa, my friend, had many brothers and sisters, the latest one only a baby, still in arms, maybe seven or eight months old. On the weekend morning that we were there, down in the big enough kitchen, Rosa’s mother was fixing pancakes. As I remember her from this vantage point, she was pretty and appealingly round, with long, thick, dark hair streaked with some gray and worn straight, pulled back casually behind her ears. She held the baby on her hip with one arm, and with her other hand she was pouring pancake batter from a large silver pitcher onto a griddle. In memory the kitchen seems a bit chaotic, with cooking things here and there, and Rosa’s other brothers and sisters coming and going. But Rosa’s mother seemed perfectly at ease, holding her baby, talking to me and her children, and using a silver pitcher for pancake batter.
I remember after that visit, I told my mother that I would like to use a silver pitcher for pancakes when I had my own home. I think now, though, that what I really wanted was to be a woman totally present with what was in her life, calm in the center of life’s chaos, holding her baby and using a silver pitcher. In that moment way back then I saw love and warmth and calm and a focus on what was important. To me, that is what happens when one loves the question. Loving the question is the focus on the now, the present moment where the joy is, making doll clothes or using a silver pitcher for pancakes.
