If you see elements of garbage in you, like fear, despair, and hatred, don’t panic. As a good organic gardener, a good practitioner, you can face this: “I recognize that there is garbage in me. I am going to transform this garbage into nourishing compost that can make love reappear.

…

When you sit at a cafe, with a lot of music in the background and a lot of projects in your head, you’re not really drinking your coffee or your tea. You’re drinking your projects, you’re drinking your worries. You are not real, and the coffee is not real either. Your tea and you coffee can only reveal itself to you as a reality when you go back to your self, and produce your true presence, freeing yourself from the past, the future, and from your worries. When you are real, the tea also becomes real and the encounter between you and the tea is real. This is genuine tea drinking.”

- Thich Nhat Hanh, “Anger”

Thich Nhat Hanh has been teaching me about mindfulness as a tool in embracing and balancing my anger. It’s certainly no surprise that I get angry sometimes, we all do. Self-care, aka “me time”, is so very hard to come by as a mom with young one’s, and that reality leaves me often drained and tired. It’s called being a mom, right? For the next two days I have about 20 projects on my to-do list, ranging from LOTS of work for 3 various clients and things I can’t continue to put off (like filing my taxes, writing so and so, calling that credit agency, UNPACKING MY SUITCASE from my move a month ago, finish painting the office, start the rest of the seeds, order my bulk foods and let others know about the new Fayetteville drop, find a futon so we don’t continue sleeping on the floor, finish a logo for dad, email my uncle, getting FOUR packages in the mail [first must finish the sewing on one of them]… should I go on???) Amidst all of these projects, I also have worries; trying to plan a trip to see some family in Louisiana, concern over a family member who is in a bad way right now, relationships that still need to be tended to and mended, and the ever-present fear that I’m not giving the kids the childhood they deserve…

But tonight is the only night of my entire week that the house is anything close to still. Chris is gone, Ethan is sleeping (sometimes so is Ver), and each week I find myself tapping into the things I truly love: I light candles, I have a bowl of homemade chicken broth, I read a little from my book, I knit for a few, I sip a glass of Pinot Noir, I hum as I wipe down counters, do dishes, hang clothes, so on. The house is quiet and smells like the sage bush that is burning. It is relatively clean and orderly, and I am in the present. What I do is present and mindful. My prayers are free and full of surrender.

I like Wednesday nights. Even if I have to work, I bask in the solitude and am grateful for the renewal.

The rest of the week is nothing like this; a sharp contrast, in fact. It is loud. We all too often find ourselves exhausted from pushing each other’s buttons, suffering as we punish each other with threats (i.e. “stop running in the house or you can’t have any blueberries!!!”: this threat happens with more animosity and more frequently than you can possibly imagine!), and making countless excuses as to why we can’t be present with each other or ourselves.

Moments of compromise, hugs, mediation and communication DO happen – a lot actually. Yes, my entire day is devoted to the kinks that are being “family”. Work and homemaking and marriage and motherhood are all integrated into one big goopy mess from the moment that I roll out of bed (or before, as Ethan is banging on my door, Chris is hinting that he might explode, Verity is nursing and wetting the sheets underneath me, and I lay there: OH MY GOD. THIS IS LIFE???) and this is before 7 am. Yes, work-at-home-motherdom in all its pros and cons. Or am I focusing on the cons for the moment? Forgive me.

This is why the hour I have to myself for the ENTIRE WEEK is so savory to me. Some people get this solitude 99% of their daily lives or in the very least while in their daily commute in the car — but maybe that keeps some of them inflexible and unadaptable to life’s chaos and inconveniences. I am grateful for the character building, challenging tight rope that is full time motherhood, for those reasons. But every one needs the silence, the reflection, the mindful energy. That is how we stay balanced and tap into the parts of ourselves that are centered and steady.

My prayer is that I can bring about the inner-peace and calm of this one hour through out my week, in the midst of work and house projects and life with 3 other full-time family members. The husband just walked in the door five minutes ago and already the home is filled with needs, ideas, and chatter. The bubble is burst

And so, goodbye.