cutlery

Last month we changed some things around in the kitchen. Specifically, we changed the drawers around. The top drawer - for years - has been the drawer with all our cutlery. Second drawer is for our most used larger utensils like wooden spoons and spatulas and those flipper guys.

Why am I telling you about the painfully mundane placement of our kitchen utensils?

I am telling you because last month we changed the drawers around.

Our cutlery is now in the second drawer and the other larger utensils like wooden spoons and spatulas and flipper guys are in the third drawer.

We’re trying the first drawer to be our spice drawer now. Our spices were not in a good place before and the logic is that it would be strange to put the spices too near the floor or in between the cutlery and the other utensils.

Do you care about this? Is it logical? I can’t tell. We’re trying it out and I am telling you now.

The thing about a kitchen though, whether you have realized it or not, is that when it is yours, it is in a deep knowing relationship with your body. The way you relate to your kitchen is through your body. Your body is ahead of your mind, in this relationship. That is part of building the safety of a home. Your body is in relationship to various spaces in your life, in ways you may or may not be aware of, but today I’m thinking about the one that is between your body and your kitchen.

I pour myself a bowl of cereal, it’s late at night. I’ve got only that one small light above the stove on as I navigate the room. You know this scene. Bowl, cereal, fridge, milk, pour, drawer, spoon. I think about none of this, except for a brief moment where I have to debate whether it is the correct ratio of cereal to milk. The rest of the time, nothing, nada, not a thought about these actions. I’m thinking maybe about what time I have to wake up tomorrow, about something he said to me today, about that child I passed in the street earlier with the chocolate on her face, I’m thinking about the war, the other war, I’m thinking about the concept of play, I’m thinking about how the sun sets later these days, thank god, I’m thinking about how my eye keeps twitching, and is there something fundamentally wrong with me and I should really clean those windows and.

So we changed the drawer.

I go for a bowl of cereal again now, and it’s all the same. Bowl, cereal, fridge, milk, pour, drawer. Drawer. Drawer. Fuck.

It’s been barely a month and I have lost count of how many times I have opened the spice drawer to grab a fork or spoon or knife and fuck. My body is ahead of my mind in this relationship and has built habits and patterns so deep in my muscles that it takes more than just one bowl of cereal to change it.

When it’s just the wrong drawer I open, it’s a simple inner roll of the eyes and then a closing and opening. It takes 5 seconds to correct myself. It feels vaguely annoying but also vaguely funny because of the number of times I make the same mistake and am reminded that I have yet to change and all of the feelings about it disappear before that spoon reaches my mouth.

Opening the wrong drawer is low risk, for sure. But then I think of the other habits or patterns I’m trying to change in my life. Insecurities, thought patterns, impatience, anxiety, etc.

I wonder if I can apply the same letting go to the mistakes I make elsewhere? I think of the growth I am yearning to feel and can’t quite yet. I often feel I am learning the same lessons over and over. It becomes more tedious, less silly, as I face myself - my same self - over and over again.

Changing a habit - that is, bringing back the presence of my mind into the relationship - requires deep, continuous call to presence. When I tell you I have yet to open the right drawer on the first try, I mean it. I have opened it wrong every time. I ask myself, with a smile, but also with a genuine curiosity, how many times? It’s practice.

I think of other relationships in my life - not just between my body and inanimate objects but between my body and other bodies. Between my mind and other minds. Have I been keeping up with the changes? Or am I just opening the same drawers without even a thought of if there’s spices or forks in there? Am I showing up with enough presence to see what’s really in front of me - ever evolving humans? Aren’t we all searching for growth? How can I celebrate, take note, allow, this kind of growth in the people around me?

Patterns, habits, these relationships where our body is ahead of our mind, are necessary, are signs of safety. I know this so I trust it enough to let down the guard of my mind in its presence.

But the reality is that sometimes the drawers change. The spoons are still in there, they’re just placed differently. Or maybe it’s spices now.

I had a small breakthrough yesterday. I went to reach for a knife and mid-reach, the thought popped in, what drawer is it? Finally! I truly felt my neurons fire in real time as my hand reached for the top drawer and then my brain swung in and redirected, calling me to the present. I felt my brain as the muscle it is, pumping hard to turn me around.

And so I opened the second drawer, on the first try. A small miracle. It didn’t happen again two hours later when I was baking banana bread and needed a teaspoon and opened the top drawer and fuck.

But that’s the thing about change. It’s not steady in the way we think it is. It takes a lot of tries, a lot of learning the same lessons, a lot of redirecting in real time. A lot of consistent calling ourselves to the present, to see what’s really in front of us, and to check in and remember, the drawers might have changed. Hopefully a lot of compassion for ourselves too, when it’s the hundredth time we might find ourselves in the same position.

And as always, maybe the hardest of all, a real hope and a real belief that maybe we don’t know how many times we’ll keep opening that wrong drawer, but one day, we will open the right one.