Questions All Over the Place

The interview game can be pretty time-consuming.  I'm not sure who started it, but I'm sure it can be intense.  I've had a chance to interview Theresa, who's shared some thoughts about her writing career and the rest of her life, and a dear friend and new journaler who muses about the issues faced in combining motherhood with other pursuits.  My own first interview is here and, since completing that, I've received two other sets of questions that have bowled me over.  I realized, after having been somewhat drained by Lisa's questions, that I need to take this process a bit more slowly.  Maybe one question a day?  

(Herewith, the rules again, for anyone else who wants to join in:  Leave me a comment saying "interview me." The first five to leave a comment requesting to be participants will be interviewed. I will respond by asking you five questions. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. (Write your own questions or borrow some) Fun and easy right?)

Theresa sent me a set of questions that have left me pondering in astonishment and disbelief.  It takes a real writer, I guess.  Here's the first one:

"Your journal is full of beautiful photographs that emphasize the presence of the sacred in our everyday lives.  Write a paragraph about any process (cooking, cleaning, eating an apple, taking a shower, etc.) and imbue it with a flavor of the sacred.  Write your paragraph from the perspective of a third person narrator ("She cut the carrots on a diagonal...")."

It has become clear to me, as I've thought about this one for hours, that I do virtually nothing with any sense of its sacredness.  I even looked up the word "sacred" to make sure that I am as oblivious as I think I am:

Synonyms: HOLY 1, blessed, consecrated, hallowed, sanctified, unprofane

It seems to me that to draw near to something with a sense of its sacredness means to approach it with attentiveness, heeding the ritualistic in the act and contemplating the memories it evokes.  I think of myself as increasingly capable of being available to the present -- but it seems that I'm not, not at all.  I will be thinking about this dilemma for a long time to come, I'm sure.  In the meantime, I made a point of trying to think like a monk last night, and here, finally, is what I came up with:

**********************************

She opens the dryer door and removes the two sheets, tousled together from their spin earlier in the day.  As she shakes each one out and folds it, she thinks about how lucky they are to have such a charming and exuberant dog.  The sheets are some of the old ones that they keep tossed across the couch, which the dog considers her private lair, so that dog hair does not carpet the all the cushions.  They had been left out a bit too long this past week, and had become disgustingly grunged, what with matted black dog hair and greasy soiled spots, but now they are fresh and soft and they shake and fold into smooth white squares.  The dog, a treasure found at the shelter eight years ago, bears no signs of her first year of privation and abuse and, apart from her voluminous shedding, is a joy to have in the house.  

She cleans out the lint collector -- a mass of dog hair, of course -- and begins to transfer the wet load from washer to dryer.  All towels -- cobalt blue to match the bathroom that she still thinks of as new, although it's probably at least 15 years since it was renovated after most of it had fallen through the floor into the kitchen.  And a beach towel, which brings a smile, even though it appears that no one in the family will be anywhere near a beach this year.  

She is thinking that it is a great good fortune to have a washer and a dryer.  Last year around this time both broke beyond repair -- memorable because that particular series of events coincided with the due date for income taxes and the collapse of the van's transmission.   

She turnes on the dryer and adds another load to the washer.  Mostly the daughter's clothes, jeans and cords that have been rolled up to accomodate a tiny build.  A couple of t-shirts.  The daughter, who is headed for college in a couple of months, should probably be doing her own wash, but the mother has been doing this, loading laundry not her own in the basement late at night, for over 20 years.  She's a lousy cook and an intermittent housekeeper, but laundry she can manage.  There is some pleasure in knowing that people will go off to work and school the next day wearing clean clothes that she has taken care of for them.  

The dog will, of course, stretch herself out on the couch in complete oblivion to any human effort on her behalf.

(Walked 1 mile each, yesterday and today.)