sunday

the truest essence of our sunday, i think, is the dragon costume lying in a puddle at the bottom of the stairs.

over the last couple of days i had been considering the routine that had taken over our days - not anything forced or arbitrary, you understand- but even though quite natural, i've found the boundaries of it to be surprisingly stagnating and limiting.

it's not that there are a terrible lot of "should's", really, and i'm not even sure this is something i can explain....

somewhere along the way of finding and establishing a rhythm (because of our desire to provide comfort for Jakub), we became captured by it. we got lost in "this is just what we do".
how strange.
don't get me wrong - i think it was needed in the beginning, and some of it probably still is. but for the last couple of days i've been hearing my beloved Hafiz's words, ".... set this dry, boring place on fire!...."

i've never thought our life to be something odd. or even unusual. other than my children are home with me and not Out There somewhere.
but i tell you, these last few days of routine and repetition have me wondering how on earth people survive it. i know they survive - or course they do - but how do they thrive?

i've always loved my days to begin a particular way - early mornings are for me to think and process and check in online, and then i get busy cleaning so i can get as much as possible done before my children wake. then the Whatever happens.
there is a rhyme and reason to the rest of the day, too - we go or stay or do or Be according to what our bodies and minds and spirits need.
we have time-outs, and we have fully engaged time-ins, too.

but it's not something to we care to measure.
i've often scoffed at the word Balance (know that I am a Libra, and Balance is my middle name) because it implies rigidity or conformity, to me. "We've had this, so now we must have this." and then "We've done that, so now we must do this." my nature says "to hell with that" and to eat it up and run and dance with it for as long as the heart desires to do so.
but - and this is a big one - i'm pretty good at checking in (internally) to see what is needed in the next moment - and chances are it is something very different. something balancing.

so my point is that we don't live in madness, around here. we don't live in complete chaos. (well. most of the time. chaos finds its way into our moments, too.)

but these last days of cleaning and cleaning and cleaning (and following the others around and picking up after them) and cleaning bums and refereeing and saying "yes, you can play with that, but let's put this away, first", and wiping off the kitchen table nine thousand times a day, and putting lids back on markers and doing three loads of laundry every thirty seconds and, "seriously?? more towels again?!?", and saying, "just let him play, I'll clean up after him," and "please stop screaming" and "lunch is almost ready" and "just a minute" and "just a minute" and "just a minute" and "no one likes to be bonked on the head, it hurts...".....
well.
it's so...
boring.

and then yesterday (sunday) the place was set on fire.

nothing shocking,
just... out of sorts.
thank goodness.

we were a house full of dragons - stomping and flying and swishing our tails and causing chaos and disorder (which was easily rectified) and dancing and playing and roaring as dragons do and conquering and retreating and of course breathing our fiercest fire.

and there were other things, too.
soft underbelly things.
reading.
cozy slippers.
uncontrollable hilarity.
building together.
ingenuity.
rest.

i suspect that it was a cleansing,
a sort of release of the confines.

i don't know what will become of it, now that we've all stepped out of the selves we've been playing for the last week.
i think at the end of this week, Jakub will probably have a turn with The Cousins.

but it's very, very interesting to me that having the freedom and desire in our days to say an enthusiastic "Yes!" to life is such a key part of our happiness. of our creativity.
we're happiest when we know that all things are possible.
it's like there hasn't been room for it in these little tiny segments of our days. "We have this much space, so we can only do this or this."

now it seems we've burned those restraints up.
so what's next?, i wonder.

could be that it won't look any different.
but it already feels different.


this post goes to this week's the soul of sunday.