The Third Broken Thing
Levity in a mopped floor
Where have the days rode off to this week? Is it this full moon pulling an invisible line of tidal attention? I feel like my consciousness has been tethered elsewhere and time is illusive; it is relative after-all. My creative energy has been flapping in the wind like a weathered flag.
But, at least I finally mopped the floors.
I don’t recall the last time I deep cleaned the tiles of our kitchen. Would you even want me to be honest? I’m not sure I want to be! But, I will be. I don’t know. Even a dirty floor is not enough of a barometer for cleaning; time and energy get spent on other immediate chores and needs… sometimes the floor gets so sticky beneath the children’s chairs or where the toddler helps cook that it’s not a simple task. And so, it waits.
However, fate got me to mop; it was the third broken thing.
On Tuesday morning, my husband broke a glass in the sink while doing dishes. A short lamentation and he moved on.
On his way out the door, I asked our toddler to carry a glass tupperware to him from the fridge for lunch. It didn’t make it a single step. It left my hands and slipped right to the floor through his little hands. He and I were shooed to the table and the shards were swept thoroughly.
My husband said, “there is going to be a third broken thing”. I retorted that it didn’t have to be that way (I was trying to dispel the power of the pattern through speaking, but you can’t escape the rule of three).
It made me think of a quote from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, “Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time”.
And so, this Friday morning, I’m pouring my toddler a cup of milk while he is pulling the half and half out of the fridge asking for a cup of “coffee milk”, too.
I think my brain split and I was both taking the jar from him and giving the jar back at the same time and so once again, the glass slipped through my hands right to the floor through his precious little hands. And once again he was ushered elsewhere (even though he reeeeally, reeeeeally wanted to help) while I cleaned up an even bigger mess than before.
Not once did anyone fret over any of these broken things and thankfully no blood was shed. And hallelujah, after the initial spoilage, I pulled out the mop and scrubbed the floors with fervor while the kids played out back.
Mopping the floors was liberating.
One less task staring at me from under my feet. A sense of levity via the uplifting dirigible of cleanliness. Practical magic.
What does and can a creative life really look like for me as a mother?
I wrote half this post with a fussy baby in my arms who kept falling asleep and then would wake up again every time I tried to put her down. One hand typing, the other holding her close. I am here doing both; mother artist, artist mother.
It feels like a moving target, small daily habits, mini-rituals, and the occasional massive, magical push of creation. Much like birthing and raising children, birthing artistic work takes substantial time, patience, and bouts of exertion. Both are biological (but one is definitely more of a feat).
Clean space lets me recharge and unscramble.
Every time I clean my studio, I make it a mess again with another project like it’s my job (and it is). A batch of infused oil, a balm, a painting, a mordant batch just waiting to happen once enough space clears.
Kinda like how every time you tidy or clean a room the children will immediately fill it with chaos again. Life is a mess. You can organize it and set the space for creative flow. But the most important space to set is your own internal world; to be spacious amidst disorder. Try not to lose your shit when something breaks or goes wrong (easy said, eh?)
Maybe there is some real meaning to that whole “Cleanliness is next to godliness”; not in the “holy through purity” vibe because that honestly feels kinda messy (there’s nothing more holy than good soil, a well-loved body, or making a mess with total enchantment), but if there is clear space, there is room to create. And what is more god-like than creation?
Keep house. Keep your head. Take care of your body.
And in all truth, this feels so. freakin’. hard. in this season of life. How is it I barely react to broken glass but I’m so reactive to the little love of my life, an innocent toddler? It’s important to keep your head in emergencies, but also, especially during non-emergencies, too. “One percent better every day”, my husband says, but I sometimes feel like I’m backsliding. I remind myself that typically things feel harder when your capacity is expanding. Every fall semester in school I’d feel so dumb like I wasn’t cut out for it, but it was because I was growing new neural connections (and turned out most of my peers felt similarly, too).
I’ve been reading about how this full moon in Scorpio is illuminating a truth in us. I’m sitting with it for myself this evening, under her big, bright glow (as I imagine her—not literally outside because like I said I’m keeping a fussy bebe content while she dreams).
I am titrating towards a truth. Scorpio energy is my home turf as a Scorpio sun married to a Scorpio moon (and child of significant Scorpio placement parents). I love seeking hard fought honesty and talking about it, peering through and making sense of mystery while still letting the unknown remain obscure. I read somewhere recently that manifestation—setting goals—without taking action is worthless. When you make even the smallest habits towards what or who you want to be, your brain rewires you into that person. Manifestation is action, not just words or wanting.
Real desire moves our sensual flesh forward.
So, I will keep building the patterns I want in my life by repeating things twice, three, four times and on. Hopefully less breaking of things, but if something breaks I can accept the momentum. Keep my head when I can’t keep tidy. Keep tidy and create when I can. Home has always been a place of magic for me and cycles of mess and order are creation spirals. Every time we act like the person we want to be, we aren’t just becoming them, we are them. So, maybe just be yourself already…
Where does your magic live?
