The Patience of Ordinary Things
It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of the shoes
Or toes. How the soles of the feet know
Where they are supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quickly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?
Pat Schneider
I love this poem. It reminds me to slow down and take notice.
Yes, that is why I like it too. The mindfulness I’ve learned through mindful eating has taught me that my relationship to food calls on me to reimagine my relationship to abundance and enough. When I feel like I have enough in my life I will not turn outside of myself to look for it-where it can never be found anyway. Food cannot be a feeling of enoughness outside of satisfying my physical hunger. Looking at all the places where I have enough, really looking (the slowing down looking that you speak of), even at the ordinary things, fills my heart and my world with a filling and fulfilling sense of gratitude and abundance.