Hand Wash Cold

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.  As New York editor Judith Regan recently admitted, “Blurbs!  Chasing them is agony; getting one is ecstasy.  I’ve written more forelock-tugging, hand-wringing blurb request letters than I can count, which is just as well because I’m sure if I quantified my success rate it would show a sad return on investment.  It’s not that an editor minds writing or sending them – we do it on behalf of books we truly love.  But it’s hard not to sympathize with the successful writer whose mailbox groans with Jiffy bags sent by me and my hopeful peers across New York.”   

Well, my own dented black mailbox has yet to groan.  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.  So when a bound manuscript titled “Hand Wash Cold: Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life” arrived on my doorstep a few months ago, I didn’t hesitate to take a look.  For one thing, the blue cover looked a lot like the robin’s egg blue of my own book jacket; the words “ordinary life” were immediately resonant.  I wondered:  should I leap out of my chair to defend my “ordinary” territory, or open my arms to welcome a soul mate?

I began to read.  Page two:  “With only a change in one’s perspective, the most ordinary things take on an inexpressible beauty. When we don’t know, we don’t judge.  And when we don’t judge, we see things in a different light.”

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

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.  Needed to clear my own pathway to the message I still keep hungering to hear:  Be still.  Look.  Love. Pay attention.  Be grateful.  Be here.  Now.  This is all there is.  And all there is, is enough, more than enough.

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

So it was with a breath of relief that I welcomed Karen Maezen Miller into my life and allowed her beautiful words to fill my soul.  Here was a fellow traveler.  Her story, it turned out, could not be more different than mine in its details. Our temperaments? Complete opposites.  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,  divvy up the burdens, open our knapsacks, break bread together?

I read her book in one day, yellow highlighter in hand.  Sometimes I had to stop, unable to see words through tears.  Other times, I copied whole paragraphs into my notebook, just to savor her wisdom by allowing it to flow through my own pen.   When I was finished, I sent out tweets and taps through the ether:  Hello, hello.  We haven’t met, but we already know one another.

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

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,  I offer you this shining passage from Hand Wash Cold, a signed and finished copy of which now sits on my own shelf of cherished  “lifeline” books:

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.

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’ve been shown.

If I encounter you on my way today, I’ll look at you and say hello.

If the phone rings, I’ll answer. If you send me a message, I’ll respond.

When my husband opens the front door, I’ll stop what I am doing to greet him.

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’ll 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’t, I will embrace her in the shine of my smile.

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.

Chapter 16, Hand Wash Cold