{"id":196,"date":"2010-05-08T17:08:12","date_gmt":"2010-05-08T17:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.katrinakenison.com\/2010\/05\/08\/hand-wash-cold\/"},"modified":"2010-05-08T17:08:12","modified_gmt":"2010-05-08T17:08:12","slug":"hand-wash-cold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/hand-wash-cold\/","title":{"rendered":"Hand Wash Cold"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span><\/span>One thing that happens, when you publish a book, is that dedicated, hard-working editors inevitably seek you out, in the hope of procuring an enthusiastic blurb for the back cover of some forthcoming book that is deemed to be similar in theme or appeal to your own.\u00a0 As New York editor Judith Regan<\/a> recently admitted, \u201c<\/span>Blurbs!\u00a0 Chasing them is agony; getting one is ecstasy.\u00a0 I\u2019ve written more forelock-tugging, hand-wringing blurb request letters than I can count, which is just as well because I\u2019m sure if I quantified my success rate it would show a sad return on investment.\u00a0 It\u2019s not that an editor minds writing or sending them \u2013 we do it on behalf of books we truly love.\u00a0 But it\u2019s hard not to sympathize with the successful writer whose mailbox groans with Jiffy bags sent by me and my hopeful peers across New York.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, my own dented black mailbox has yet to groan.\u00a0 I am, thankfully, neither famous nor inundated. And, given how generously other authors, friends and strangers both, have read and supported my own work, I feel that I owe a debt in kind.\u00a0 So when a bound manuscript titled \u201cHand Wash Cold: Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life\u201d<\/a> arrived on my doorstep a few months ago, I didn\u2019t hesitate to take a look.\u00a0 For one thing, the blue cover looked a lot like the robin\u2019s egg blue of my own book jacket; the words \u201cordinary life\u201d were immediately resonant. \u00a0I wondered:\u00a0 should I leap out of my chair to defend my “ordinary” territory, or open my arms to welcome a soul mate?<\/p>\n

I began to read.\u00a0 Page two:\u00a0 \u201cWith only a change in one\u2019s perspective, the most ordinary things take on an inexpressible beauty. When we don\u2019t know, we don\u2019t judge.\u00a0 And when we don\u2019t judge, we see things in a different light.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course.\u00a0 I could have written these lines myself.\u00a0 In fact, I have<\/em> written them, many times, or some variation thereof.\u00a0 But I also realized years ago, about half-way through the writing of my own first book,\u00a0 that I didn\u2019t really have a single thing to say about simplifying, or slowing down, or waking up, or not judging, that someone else hadn\u2019t said already.<\/p>\n

And yet, I still needed to put the truth that had been written by others into new words for myself. Needed to learn the same lessons over and over again. \u00a0Needed to clear my own pathway to the message I still keep hungering to hear:\u00a0 Be still.\u00a0 Look.\u00a0 Love. Pay attention.\u00a0 Be grateful.\u00a0 Be here.\u00a0 Now.\u00a0 This is all there is.\u00a0 And all there is, is enough, more than enough.<\/p>\n

Day after day, I forget what I\u00a0 know.\u00a0 Day after day, I find myself back in the thick of it, thrashing around in my own emotional bog, reaching for a life line.\u00a0 But at least, over time, I\u2019ve figured out where to turn for help, have learned how to grab hold and save myself.\u00a0 The yoga mat.\u00a0 Prayer.\u00a0 Meditation.\u00a0 The books I love.\u00a0 The friends I trust.\u00a0 The wide open space of the present moment.<\/p>\n

So it was with a breath of relief that I welcomed Karen Maezen Miller<\/a> into my life and allowed her beautiful words to fill my soul.\u00a0 Here was a fellow traveler.\u00a0 Her story, it turned out, could not be more different than mine in its details. Our temperaments? Complete opposites.\u00a0 But, oh, I could tell right away: we are both peering at the same road map, making our slow stumbling way toward the same place, learning how to savor the journey and to be less hell-bent on the destination. How could we not join hands, share the road,\u00a0 divvy up the burdens, open our knapsacks, break bread together?<\/p>\n

I read her book in one day, yellow highlighter in hand.\u00a0 Sometimes I had to stop, unable to see words through tears.\u00a0 Other times, I copied whole paragraphs into my notebook, just to savor her wisdom by allowing it to flow through my own pen. \u00a0 When I was finished, I sent out tweets and taps through the ether:\u00a0 Hello, hello.\u00a0 We haven\u2019t met, but we already know one another.<\/p>\n

And there she was, saying hello right back, from the opposite side of the country.\u00a0 A month later, I walked through Maezen\u2019s front gate and she reached up, plucked a lemon from an abundant tree, and handed it to me. We\u2019ve been deep in some sort of conversation ever since, even if that simply means me hopping over to Cheerio Road<\/a>\u00a0to see what\u2019s going on, or her leaving a few words of encouragement at the bottom of on Ordinary Day blog post.<\/p>\n

Today, in gratitude for friendship, the bonds of motherhood, the healing power of story, and the twists of fate and circumstance that bring far-flung strangers face-to in Zen gardens,\u00a0 I offer you this shining passage from Hand Wash Cold<\/a>, a signed and finished copy of which now sits on my own shelf of cherished \u00a0\u201clifeline\u201d books:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Gardens, like children, are forgiving; gardens grow. Love, even clumsy and unrefined, cultivates. Time, unhurried, is never wasted. Plants grow heavenward, strong and true, toward the even and ever-present light.<\/em><\/p>\n

Right in front of me, in plain sight, I have finally seen what the full sun can do. The sun gives attention, and attention fixes everything. It is up to me to put into practice the larger lesson I\u2019ve been shown.<\/p>\n

If I encounter you on my way today, I\u2019ll look at you and say hello.<\/p>\n

If the phone rings, I\u2019ll answer. If you send me a message, I\u2019ll respond.<\/p>\n

When my husband opens the front door, I\u2019ll stop what I am doing to greet him.<\/p>\n

When my daughter comes home from school, I will have nothing to do. We will have no place to run. We will lounge on the floor or linger on the lawn. When she speaks, I will listen, without steering the conversation to a conclusion. If she has a scheme, I\u2019ll go along, and let her pull me off course. We will let the hours lapse and the afternoon drift. When she looks at me, and even when she doesn\u2019t, I will embrace her in the shine of my smile.<\/p>\n

Today, for a moment more than I think I can bear, I will give her attention. I will give you attention. I will give this world my complete attention. I will give it the sun.<\/p>\n

Chapter 16, <\/em>Hand Wash Cold<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One thing that happens, when you publish a book, is that dedicated, hard-working editors inevitably seek you out, in the hope of procuring an enthusiastic blurb for the back cover of some forthcoming book that is deemed to be similar in theme or appeal to your own.\u00a0 As New York editor Judith Regan recently admitted, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":[17,20,24,29,30,40,14,15],"tags":[182,205,249,295],"class_list":{"0":"post-196","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-acceptance","8":"category-books","9":"category-connection","10":"category-friendship","11":"category-gratitude","12":"category-mindfulness","13":"category-soul-work","14":"category-writing-and-reading","15":"tag-friendship-2","16":"tag-hand-wash-cold","17":"tag-karen-maezen-miller","18":"tag-mindfulness-2","19":"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\/196","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=196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/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=196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}