Rest. What a thing to try to find right now. With no school. No childcare. With three kids who are very much here—in a way they haven’t been for a year or two now. With chores and tasks and to-dos piling up, one on top of another. With a pandemic. With my sleep either coming in a blackout sort of way, hard and heavy and without dreams—or in a restless way, with worries and imaginings intermingling all night, resembling anything but rest.
There are only pockets of rest left. Little pieces in the day that often aren’t very consistent. Though I try to make them be with routines and rhythms sprinkled throughout the day. But that brings me back to those children. Rest isn’t found in long stretches or in the ways I’d like to find it: through pedicures and lengthy brunches with friends, with kids off on overnights with grandparents, consistent date nights, by doing literally anything at all without the threat of an actual global crisis lingering over my head. The heaviness so often seems to win. Until it doesn’t. Until I remember there is something uplifting in my morning cup of coffee, in sunshine, in the kids’ uncontrollable giggles. As Glennon Doyle writes in her book Carry On, Warrior:
“You have been offered ‘the gift of crisis’…the Greek root of the word crisis is ‘to sift’, as in, to shake out the excesses and leave only what's important. That's what crises do. They shake things up until we are forced to hold on to only what matters most. The rest falls away.”
When so much else has fallen away, here are the things, the pockets of rest, I’ve been holding onto.
Giggles at breakfast time.
Iced coffee shaken up with heavy cream and vanilla syrup.
Morning bike rides when everything feels fresh and new.
Quiet (or, more often, “quiet”) reading time.
Walking laps around the park while the kids play.
Sitting and sipping more coffee while he figures out a new LEGO set.
Tacos for lunch is its own kind of spiritual ministry.
Sitting here with the window open every afternoon from 12:30-2:00. And every Saturday morning for as long as I need.
When she asks to do a virtual baking class. So we do.
Folding laundry. I know. I kind of love it. It feels calming and therapeutic. * insert shrug emoji here *
Reading on the front porch.
Or lounging on the deck.
That light while I water the plants in the evening.
And clay facemasks FTW.
