{"id":1833,"date":"2013-06-04T21:32:50","date_gmt":"2013-06-05T01:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.katrinakenison.com\/?p=1833"},"modified":"2013-06-04T21:32:50","modified_gmt":"2013-06-05T01:32:50","slug":"housework-soulwork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/housework-soulwork\/","title":{"rendered":"Housework, Soulwork"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"saladS<\/span>hall I strip the sheets off the bed?\u201d I asked my friend, a prolific writer who happens at the moment to be between books.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no, leave them,\u201d she insisted.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ll change the sheets.\u00a0 I love having an excuse to interact with my house.\u201d<\/p>\n

An acclaimed novelist whose books settle onto bestseller lists for months at a time, she is also, in her heart of hearts, the happiest of housewives.<\/p>\n

When I visited her in May, the two of us stayed up way too late talking about other writers we know, ideas for new projects, the books we were in the midst of reading, the ones we\u2019d set down before finishing.\u00a0 And then, in the morning, we made breakfast smoothies, hauled out a stack of cookbooks and her notebook full of clipped and saved recipes, and perched on stools in the kitchen, comparing notes on our favorite vegetarian dishes.\u00a0 \u00a0We took time to admire the brief, sudden bloom of the climbing rose bush in the back yard, to take her dog for a long walk around the neighborhood, to check on the herbs growing in pots on the porch.<\/p>\n

I loved interacting with my friend\u2019s house, too.\u00a0 It is a well-loved home, not grand or flashy or huge, but warm and nurturing and soulful, tended with care and deeply inhabited.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve thought of my friend\u2019s response often over the last few weeks. \u00a0What’s stayed with me, I realize, \u00a0is not only the beauty of the life she’s created but also the simple joy she allows herself in each day’s doings — joy she experiences fully and without second guessing her efforts, whether she’s sitting at her desk and crafting the first lines of the novel she\u2019s been working out in her mind for months, or taking an elderly friend to the grocery store, or spending twenty minutes at the stove caramelizing onions, or (as she always insists on doing), driving me to the airport, even if it\u2019s rush hour.<\/p>\n

What \u00a0freedom there is in such joy: the freedom of not judging our work but choosing instead to see the value and the meaning in all of it.\u00a0 There is, after all — \u00a0as my wise friend has figured out — no hierarchy, other than the one we impose on ourselves.<\/p>\n

Who says that an Op-Ed in the Times<\/em> is more important or meaningful than an arrangement of fresh flowers in the guest room or a pizza made from scratch? And yet, how tempting it is to draw that line, and then to start right in analyzing and evaluating.\u00a0 How reverently we place the \u201ccreative\u201d work above the line (this<\/i> matters<\/i>!<\/em>), and consign everything else a lesser status \u2013 the dishes in the sink, the recycling to be sorted, the vegetables to be chopped, the dried mud to be swept from the floor.<\/p>\n

I do the dishes and sort the bottles and chop the veggies. I stay on top of the routine household chores. But I often catch myself rushing, too, distracted and contrite, as if the keeper of some invisible Writer\u2019s Time Clock is frowning down upon my domestic labors and finding me wanting, failing to live up to larger expectations.\u00a0 \u201cWhat, you spent two hours putzing around in the garden this afternoon, and you didn’t get a single paragraph written?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Perhaps it\u2019s because \u00a0writing doesn\u2019t come easily to me that I always feel as if everything else I do, even the most essential domestic task, is really just some slightly disguised version of \u00a0playing hooky.<\/p>\n

A choice between a mountain of laundry to fold and a blank page?\u00a0 No contest.\u00a0 Give me the dirty clothes! I actually love the beginning, the middle, and the end of laundry duty \u2013 from the physical exercise of lugging the heavy baskets down two flights of stairs to the washing machine in the\u00a0 basement, right through that moment when everything is neatly stacked and sorted back upstairs on my bed, socks matched and rolled the way my husband likes them,\u00a0 t-shirts folded into squares, towels in thirds, dish cloths ready to go back in the drawer.\u00a0 But it\u2019s a guilty satisfaction. I know that writing is harder, that I’ve chosen the easy way out.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou should be doing something more meaningful, more productive with your life, than folding pillow cases,\u201d my inner critic chides.\u00a0 \u201cYou haven\u2019t written anything for a week,\u201d she reminds me.\u00a0 \u201cWhat kind of writer are you, anyway?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The answer, at the moment, is: I am a writer who isn\u2019t writing much.<\/p>\n

After a year of daily writing to finish a book, and then months spent on and off the road trying to sell it, my writing self seems to have \u00a0declared a sabbatical. I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to catch up on my email.\u00a0 I\u2019ve mailed off a stack of hand-written thank you notes and birthday cards.\u00a0 I wrote my first guest blog post<\/strong><\/a> (yes, a deadline is helpful), a few comments on Facebook, daily grocery lists.\u00a0 I\u2019ve spent time working on a book of quotes I\u2019ve collected for a friend, from books we\u2019ve shared and loved \u2013 nice pens in different colors, careful penmanship, the pleasure of copying beautiful sentences onto beautiful paper, of being reminded all over again of the indelible potency of language.<\/p>\n

Other than that, I’m afraid I don\u2019t have much to show for myself, writing-wise.<\/p>\n

But my house! Finally, the screens are in, the kitchen floor is<\/em> washed, the outdoor pots are spilling with blooms.\u00a0 There are fuschia rhododendrons in the vases.\u00a0 Tender sunflower seedlings are growing by the stone wall, spinach and arugula and lettuce from the garden will fill the salad bowl tonight.\u00a0 My closet is clean. \u00a0I bought a new tablecloth for the dining room table, got the spots out of the old placemats, ironed the napkins. For the first time since before Christmas, we\u2019ve had friends over for dinner.\u00a0 It felt so good to sit around the table, catching up with loved ones and watching the candles drip down that, two nights later, we did it again.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been pulling out my own cookbooks, trying new dishes. Stuffed peppers on gorgonzola polenta, roasted eggplant with buttermilk sauce, kale pesto, haddock Florentine. \u00a0Perhaps the subtle creative forces haven\u2019t abandoned me after all; it could be they are just assuming a different form, recharging in the kitchen amidst the makings of dinner.<\/p>\n

In a couple of days, Henry will leave for his summer job on the Cape; this week, every last meal and shared moment feels like an occasion.\u00a0 Soon we will be two here again, re-adjusting to silence and solitude. Last night, while Steve mowed the lawn and Henry practiced the music for Die Fledermaus<\/em> (he\u2019s determined to know the scores for all nine summer musicals by Friday), I made pasta and roasted vegetables and marinated steaks for the guys.\u00a0The windows were open, the scent of fresh-cut grass wafting through the kitchen, the sound of the lawnmower a steady comfort.\u00a0 My husband and son and I were all absorbed in our labors, busy and peaceful and content.<\/p>\n

The Keeper of the Time Clock was silent.\u00a0 Perhaps she\u2019s finally gotten the message:\u00a0 there is no line. \u00a0There is nothing to judge.\u00a0 No one else cares how many words I write or<\/i> how clean my floor is.\u00a0 And the only thing that really matters is the attitude \u00a0I bring to the task at hand, whatever it may be.\u00a0 What I aspire to this summer, then, is this: to do my work, all<\/i> of it, with conscious intention.\u00a0 With love, not judgment.\u00a0 And with gratitude for the great gift of this life, for its countless blessings and small miracles, and for the daily actions of living that create a home for the soul, a place where both joy and effort can flourish.<\/p>\n

As so often happens, in the midst of writing this post, I came across a poem that spoke directly to my heart. \u00a0Thank you, Claudia Cummins at First Sip<\/a>,<\/strong> for the beauty and inspiration \u00a0your lovely site brings across my threshold each weekday morning. \u00a0And yes, yes: \u00a0“One must never ignore the instinct to create” — be it scones or novels, a poem or a terra cotta pot overflowing with pale petunias. There is no line, just our own beautiful offerings, our songs.<\/p>\n

Irreverent Baking\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I should be upstairs with the others, drumming up ways<\/i>
\nto heal the world, save the animals, pray for water<\/i>
\nin a far-off continent, devote the remainder of my days<\/i>
\nto a catalog of restorations. But this morning it was the matter<\/i>
\nof scones that drew my gaze, and my feet remained<\/i>
\nplanted in the kitchen. One must never ignore the instinct<\/i>
\nto create, is what I told myself, and soon the counter was stained<\/i>
\nwith flour, my hands sticky with dough, the house inked<\/i>
\nwith the smell of blueberry possibility, and I knew I was not wrong.<\/i>
\nThis was my prayer, my act of healing, my offering, my song.<\/i>
\n
\n<\/i>~ Maya Stein<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

P.S. \u00a0I’m always amazed at they way my online friends and I find ourselves connected by invisible threads of inspiration. \u00a0Coincidence or synchronicity that Dani Shapiro and I have echoed each other today — giving voice to that question that apparently haunts us both, though in different ways: \u00a0What kind of writer are you?<\/em> \u00a0To read her thoughtful reply, click here<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shall I strip the sheets off the bed?\u201d I asked my friend, a prolific writer who happens at the moment to be between books. \u201cNo, no, leave them,\u201d she insisted.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ll change the sheets.\u00a0 I love having an excuse to interact with my house.\u201d An acclaimed novelist whose books settle onto bestseller lists for months […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,14,15],"tags":[122,179,220,287,390],"class_list":{"0":"post-1833","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hearth-home","8":"category-soul-work","9":"category-writing-and-reading","10":"tag-claudia-cummins","11":"tag-first-sip","12":"tag-housework","13":"tag-maya-stein","14":"tag-soulwork","15":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/600x600.png?fit=600%2C600","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}