Answers and Questions
I’ve spent some time in my life looking for answers. I’ve looked outside, inside, and all around the house. There was a time I thought meditation would bring it all to me. All I had to do was sit still enough.
Maybe that’s true. Maybe meditation is an answer to “how can I get more answers?”
These days what I find is that my dreams, if I can remember them, have answers and many more questions.
Last night I dreamed I found myself working in a really poorly stocked kitchen, that was pretty disgustingly dirty. I had made plans to watch season 3 of The Bear, but had not see any episodes of it in quite some time. So probably the tension, disgust, and frustration was not related to the show.
As I worked away in the less than pristine conditions, I realized it was a home kitchen. My home kitchen. I was making the best of the situation. What I used to call my super power, and recently realized is actually a lingering trauma response.
I noticed a crack between a wall and a cabinet. I looked closer, shined a light inside and inside found a dark, deep and creepy space. I ignored what I found and kept on working.
I left the kitchen to do something else and when I came back, the roll of paper towels was spinning away while the towels disappeared into the widening gap and down the scary dark cave.
It is no mystery that I have a looming fear of what lies below our cracks in our world. I don’t need a professional to decipher this particular nocturnal vision. But I take heart in a few of the other details. I don’t need things to be perfect to keep going. I’ll keep showing up, and doing what I can.
Knowing that I can count on me, it means something.
Then tonight, when I was making pizza for dinner, a fault line opened up in me. It’s been a while and the temperatures and humidity are different. I got the first pizza onto the peel and then couldn’t get it off into the oven. I scraped it off with a spatula. That is not good form. When the timer went off, I went to get it out and it was stuck. I used the spatula to scrape as much as I could off the 500 degree pizza steel. While the cheese melted onto the oven rack and the bottom of the oven.
When I got as much as I could safely get out of the oven at that temperature, I closed the oven and turned it off. I then went and told my husband I could not make pizza tonight. As I cried. A lot.
Funny, cracks opening up in the kitchen in my dreams . Cracks opening up in me in my actual kitchen.
The husband went to pick up Chipotle and the kids came and gave me big hugs. No matter what you do, not everything is going to work out according to your plans. No matter what I do, not everything is going to work out according to my plans. It’s still ok. It will still be OK.