Meditation While Mopping

Today is one of those "doing the chores" days. I don't like doing the chores. But there's nobody else to do them. And they must be done.

Doing the chores also gives me some time to think about things. Perhaps others get more out of mopping than I do, but I find it hard to give mopping my full attention. My mind wanders.

But today I did vow to be more attentive. For one thing, I really need to notice the things that need fixing or cleaning or touching up since in a few months, I'll be giving up my lease and the people at the property management company will be coming through with their white gloves.

For another thing, I am trying to be more mindful during Lent, even mindful while I'm mopping.

And so one of the things I thought about today was how much of my life I live on the surface and how hard it can be to get down into the depths. (And yes, this also applies to my white vinyl kitchen floor which I clean on the surface and yet it looks dirty. Grrr.) But in all seriousness, I think many of us spend a lot of our time with surface issues and at some point we realize that we need to go deeper, and yet going deeper looks like a lot of (potentially unpleasant) work. Who wants to do that? It's only under duress that I will do it.

On the other hand, I am now suddenly enamored of the product called "Magic Eraser." It turns out that this item wipes the scuff marks off of walls and floorboards. (It also turns out to work better if you wet it first, which I had to learn from the Internet because I didn't read the instructions and inhaled a bunch of the "magic eraser" dust as the first one tore into shreds when I tried to use it dry. Oh.)

Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a magic eraser to erase all that stuff in my past, that stuff under the surface, that I'd just as soon not have there? Oh, I could make a list, easily, of all the things (events, decisions, actions I've taken) that I would love to magically erase!

Of course, all of those things have made me who I am today. Life is not a series of good things and good decisions and good behavior. If we never make mistakes, we never learn anything. I have learned a lot. A whole lot. And so I continue, sometimes still reluctantly, to learn to embrace those things I wish weren't there instead of trying to hide them.

But still, that magic eraser is a temptation to me.