Don't know mind

There are times when I start feeling that the stress of all the hats I'm wearing is becoming, well, stressful.  There are moments when I don't, such as last night, when Andi & I went to go here this group called the Revels celebrate the fall solstice on the Charles River last night.  We took Ari, who did indeed revel in the music, while we watched the flickering display of a boat that was the sun and a boat that was the moon converge upon the bridge, as the group sang an atonal chant about walking in beauty, "Beauty is before me, beauty is above me," that reminded me of the blessing we Jews say on Shabbat about the schechinah.  It was gorgeous and relaxing and we strolled home feeling as though Beauty had really lit on us for a little while--that is, until Ari started to holler.

The stressful moments come when I can't seem to adjudicate between the different parts of me that have different roles to perform.  The part that does errands, for example, splinters into so many parts--the part that makes food, orders tupperware for Ari's lunch (didja realize how expensive that stuff it?), does laundry, gets the headlight fixed on the car, etc.  I find all those things incredibly difficult to do and even more difficult to plan.  (Which is more important?  Which tupperware should I buy?  How much time should I spend looking?  I researched tupperware for an insanely long time, trying to find some that is ecological and not dangerous in terms of BPA, and ordered a bunch of pretty stuff that arrived today... without lids).  It is NOT my bailiwick.  Fortunately there's Andi, but there's only so much of Andi to go around and she has her own life too.  And then there's all the other hats--being a mom (the hardest part is still the weaning, which I now feel may go on until Ari hits first grade), being a student, having all the different courses to decide about, doing my placement, getting my clothes ready for said placements, doing Little Buddhas, etc.  I don't know if it really is a lot, or if I am just being whiny.  I just feel tired today.

But as I was procrastinating and glancing through Andi's Maurice Sendak coffee table book I found this quote from after Sendak had a near-fatal heart attack in 1967.  He says that the book he undertook in the wake of his recovery was fascinating to him:  "I feel my work has permanently changed tone, color and meaning, without my yet having put pen to paper.  I am as curious about me as though I were someone else."  

That to me described so well the mindfulness experience--the point of it, if one can say there is such a thing as a point to something that is so not driven by goals and agendas.  That we are experiencing ourselves every day in a fresh way--as curious about ourselves as if we had just met some new, attractive, interesting acquaintance we were eager to get to know.   I have no idea who I will be today.  Each day I have thousands of chances to discover just who I am--who Ari is--who you are.  Isn't that exciting?  Such an openness of mind?  And even if it doesn't feel like that, just opening up the window a crack--a little bit--to let that curiosity in.  What am I feeling?  What is actually happening in this body of mine?  What am I about to create?