So after yesterday's blog post, I woke up thinking about the Cotidiano. It's a word I learned in Spanish before I learned it in English. I remember reading a poem in Spanish that talked about taking off shoes every day and putting them by the bed, something about a wife, basically something about a life that builds from doing the same thing day after day (and loving the same person year after year). I will find the poem! But that feeling stayed with me from the poem, and then it became my life. After an entire childhood and young adulthood of moving around incessantly, I married my penpal and moved to his town where I have lived with him as his wife for the last 25 years. We have lived in the house we are in now for 21 years. Before this, I had barely lived anywhere for more than 21 months.
So today I woke thinking about my post from last night and thinking about the Cotidiano. Thinking about how doing the Cotidiano every day, I finished graduate school, birthed two boys and raised them, taught for many years, wrote a book, and kept a marriage intact. My friend Amrita Murti who lived in an ashram in India for a decade, told me, "Before enlightenment, do the laundry; after enlightenment, do the laundry." She sent me Jack Kornfield's book After the Ecstasy, the Laundry. Even the enlighted have daily chores.
What does it mean to embrace the Cotidiano, to wake every day and do this, day in and day out? Because if not? Frustration, depression, anxiousness, restlessness, and / or boredom, will take over.
This morning, Charlie called me as he usually does when finishing Monday morning practice. They start at 6 a.m., practice two hours, then get a break before "late-start Monday at 10 a.m. Then in the afternoon after being in class all day, they do an hour of weights and then two more hours in the pool. He comes home at the end of the day "cooked" and hungry. Anyway, he calls me this morning to request breakfast: french toast with soudough bread and maple syrup, bacon, and four fried eggs. Happy to do it and to clean up afterward. It's the Cotidiano. I'm lapping it up, especially with how fleeting it is, since I just took Diego to Western Washington this Setember, and Charlie is finishing high school early (next month) and going to Barcelona in January to study for a semester at the University of Barcelona.
We have made our daily lives of our daily chores.
Here's what got done today: Breakfast was made and so was my bed (passive voice, but you understand: by ME); I talked to Diego on the phone on his way to music class; my mom and I talked for a long time and she feels loved (I hope); five-gallon water jugs were filled; I did my Target return and bought catfood and mouthwash, and, I was so proud of myself, bought nothing else! from Target! I pet my cat and took Margo for a hike. I wrestled with Charlie. I went to the office, I wrote.
This weekend we're going to see Diego. He is thriving, two states away, without parents to tell him what to do. He's making his own Cotidiano, studying, going to class, sailing, moutain biking, camping, going to parties, meeting people, playing guitar. The way in which our days unfold, the structure we give them, the beverages and food we consume, the exercise we get or don't, the work we complete, the relationships we nurture, the chores we complete....our days make our lives.
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