Life can seem very daily sometimes. After many years there’s a routine, a prescribed way of doing things, a clock to punch, a boss to please, and chores to finish. The activities you may have begun with gusto many years ago, now seem repetitive, meaningless or dull.  If that’s the case, a reframe may be in order.  Pick a quiet spot, breathe deeply, and try to think like a creator. Face the new day thinking about what you would like to do, create, build, convey. Choose something. It could be a something small.  Instead of thinking about how you are going to carry out the tasks and responsibilities of the day, take a little time to think about what you’d like to make of  that day. It’s a different mindset. Come up with  something that will bring you closer to your personal goals, something that expresses your personal contribution, something that expands your understanding… something new.  It could be very small, but still significant.  It could be a new way of looking at things. Maybe a poem.

The Zen of Housework

I look over my own shoulder
down my arm
to where they disappear under water
into hands inside pink rubber gloves
moiling among dinner dishes.

My hands lift a wine glass,
holding it by the stem and under the bowl.
It breaks the surface
like a chalice
rising from a medieval lake.
Full of the grey wine
of domesticity, the glass floats
to the level of my eyes.
Behind it, through the window
above the sink, the sun, among
a ceremony of sparrows and bare branches,
is setting in Western America.

I can see thousands of droplets
of steam-each a tiny spectrum-rising
from my goblet of grey wine
They sway, changing directions
constantly-like a school of playful fish,
or like the sheer curtain
on the window to another world.

Ah, grey sacrament of the mundane!
–Al Zolynas

Sixty somethings need to practice thinking like a creator to stay fresh and engaged when the job gets old or the work grows stale.    

Categories: observations