I’m back in my home Seattle. At least that is what they call this area on planet earth.
I notice there is something inside, a vast, exciting inner place that is true home and goes with me everywhere…..the same one that’s in you.
As this body moved in a car from south to north, the temperature dropped about 30 degrees fahrenheit. I stopped sweating.
Arriving around midnight, bringing everything inside, I was soon asleep.
But in the morning….a smell.
Something in the kitchen is rotten. I open the fridge. All the food in the refrigerator last week before I left is still in the same tubs, leftovers, jars or bags. Almost everything untouched and completely rotten.
The most disgusting being chicken innards that were supposed to be used for soup or something. The stink was sooooo gross I tried not to breathe through my nose as I threw it in the waste. I started cleaning out the fridge, wiping down the counter top, emptying the dishwasher, filling it back up again with dishes.
The Voice: Why doesn’t anyone around here notice these things and CLEAN them BEFORE it starts to smell like a CESSPOOL?
“Is it that hard??!!”
I thought as I took two completely rotten bananas that were sitting in the fruit bowl on the counter outside to the yard waste bin.
And then within seconds…noticing…my belief that this entire room (called a kitchen) should look different than it looks right now. And SMELL different by the way. Jeez!
Is it true?
Yes. Are you serious? I can’t believe you asked me that.
Can you absolutely know that it’s true, it shouldn’t smell this way, it should be cleaner, it should be different?
No.
How do you react?
Quick! It’s someone else’s fault! They should have cleaned up! Fuming, irritated, annoyed, frustrated. Thinking about how to solve this “problem”.
But who would you be without that belief that this should smell different than it does?
Suddenly, laughing.
Amused at the complete disgusting-ness of rotting meat, moldy rice, moldy pizza, fermenting fruit, the hairy grayish white things growing all over the beans, cheese, the leftovers.
Without the thought, I notice I move to clean, I start washing, I spray, I throw out. It’s over in about 15 minutes probably.
Turning the thought around: my thinking shouldn’t smell or be so rotten. No kidding.
“I never have the sense that anything I haven’t done is undone. I see the things that don’t get done as things that need a different timing: I and the world are better off without them, for now.” ~ Byron Katie
Could the timing of even this be perfect?
I get to enter the house and join with it again, talk to the kitchen by cleaning it and lovingly wiping its counters.
Could it be I am the luckiest person in the world, to get to empty all the rotten stuff, scrub, vacuum, sparkle? To be amazed at nature taking its course? And then go to the store and fill the empty clean fridge with many items, like freshly picked blueberries the size of gigantic marbles?
Yes, it’s actually sort of exciting and wonderful. I love this kitchen. I love this place. I guess I needed to do a little cleaning out today of quite a few rotten items.
They were in my mind.
Was it that hard??!! Phew. No.
“If you want to accord with the Tao, just do your job, then let go.” ~ Tao Te Ching #24
Love, Grace