More essential than accomplishing

I've had several overall wearing days in a row. There was the epic moving day where three of us hauled our entire Feeleez business one box at a time from one storage location to another. My thighs still have a string of little stepping stone like bruises where I leaned the corner of each 48 game-full cardboard beast when my arms were about to give way.

Yesterday, two of my brave and hearty mama friends and I pickled 50 lbs of dilly beans, a feat never before accomplished. It was a six hour marathon with kids awake, even. The night before was 300 pickling cukes (remind me next year to plan on maybe HALF that many!) into kosher-style brine and also gallon jugs of lacto-fermented ones. Nourishing Days describes more about that if you are interested. Some of them also got chopped into a bread and butter style from Putting It Up With Honey. 

Throw in painting one wall of the downstairs, knitting up a hat, and all the various regular happenings of each day (like making meals, pushing squishy bottoms on the swing, and negotiating near hysterical battles between one boy and one girl, I know), you could say that I've been getting lots done.

It has something to do with no longer being pregnant or holding an infant or walking around with a toddler in tow or stopping multiple times a day to nurse. It has something to do with this time of year, anticipating winter, wanting to freshen up the indoor spaces and relishing in the bounty of harvest, wanting to fill the root cellar with local treasures. 

Whatever it is, it has me thinking about accomplishments. It does feel good to get stuff done. It's easier to feel satisfying when I fall into bed at night and can list off the completed tasks for the day, rather than those days of babyhood when the entire day was spent sitting in a chair or standing and rocking and holding or those long days of early pregnancy lying on the couch wanting to throw up, weeping at the discomfort of it all. Those days are ones when, to the outside world, and as a result to our culturally trained productivity-is-everyting minds, I didn't get anything done. How strange that growing a human being somehow doesn't count. 

So now I am in a different phase. Expansive spiralling. Yet, those days of stillness grew something essential in me. Something that allows me to now see things differently. To see myself and what I do differently. I look at all this doing through a different lens, realizing that how I do each thing (which equates to who I am being as I do each thing) matters. At the end of the day, when the shelves are lined with pickles and the dehydrator full of apple slices, does it even matter if I wasn't present for each slice of the bean stem of it or if I wasn't kind to my children when their own water was boiling?

Presence is my meter, kindness is my criteria. Otherwise, it's all just kinda less sweet.

 

 

Comments

[April]

Thank you! I appreciate both the backward looking and the forward looking that I am able to do with this post, and remember presence (my youngest is 2).

[Discount north Face Jackets]

Looking forward to your better and better articles.

[Martha]

I like this. I understand it. I think about it, too. What are "accomplishments" in our heads or how do we define them? Sometimes I think we want to register or catalogue them so we can justify something about ourselves to ourselves. But what needs justifying? For me meditation is a helpful tool in getting closer to seeing and understanding all this. Wishing you ease in your days, Kris.

[Eleanor Laroche]

Those pickles look delicious! Love, Gramma Eleanor

[kris laroche]

you are so welcome, erin. we are loving loving loving the lacto fermented pickles as a row of gallon size jars sits bubbling along the floor of the kitchen. and after the immense effort of the regular canning process, i am amazed at the inexpensive, easefulness of this way of preserving. its amazing. yes...that massive pot of water boiling is pretty high impact. wishing you love on all those adventures and let me know what you discover along the way. xo

[erin]

i love that you've offered recipes and links for canning and preserving without sugar, or in some cases like the lact-fermented items, no heat processing. Both because of sugar and the footprint of electricity, i am starting to rethink my previous canning adventures!

i want to continue the shift towards putting by with more nutrition in mind,a nd this is helpful. thank you sweet kris xo