Oh, crap!
I was fretting this morning. Peeling the thin paper skin off a garlic clove with my fingers has become difficult. Over the years, I’d relapsed into using a small paring knife. On occasion, I would imitate a technique that I’ve seen on TV: lay the garlic on a board, take the flat side of a knife, and smash the thing like I’m in macho hell. Sure, it works; brute strength often works. But brute strength can also be painful (in this case, to the wrists). Smashing through things, even garlic, is not an easy way to live. Fortunately, I use voice activated software to write; and just as fortunately, this morning, I remembered a garlic peeling technique I first learned about 20 years ago.
My answer to the moment’s issue is found in the wisdom of a small, roundish woman with an oddly crooked smile and a slow, rocking walk. Her name was Indu. I liked her a lot because she was a bit eccentric and could set folks’ hair on fire by using a spectacularly powerful word: “no.”
I loved her for that. If it appeared that someone was threatening her serenity and easy way of doing things, she would smite them with “no.”
During those years, I was spending hours in the kitchen of an ashram that I dearly love. Will everything that I got from that time ever fill all the pages I want to write? I don’t know.
But about the kitchen. It was not only the company of the other folks in the kitchen; it was the quiet experience of being in the present moment while I chopped vegetables, mixed cereals, washed dishes, and, yes, peeled garlic. I would be 100% focused on the task at hand. I was conscious of nothing else around me; nothing distracted me. I was never bored. Rarely, have I had this experience of contentment in my day jobs.
But back to Indu. She was not a particularly graceful woman; I am guessing that at the time she was probably near 70. But she walked with this ultra slow gait, her plump arms swaying like feathers. I never saw Indu hurrying to get anywhere. In her jeans and print, colored tops, she would sit at the front of the hall where the morning chant was held and focus on what was before her. And while I can’t speak for other people, she always had a smile for me.
I’d always thought that the garlic press was the best invention since sliced bread, but Indu had a little trick up her sleeve that even surpassed that little invention, and in learning how to easily slip garlic cloves from their thin covers, I got a glimpse of life’s most important lesson: it really doesn’t have to be that hard.
Slipping the skins off garlic
Take a jar and fill it with water; stuff that baby with garlic cloves. Let it sit for a day or let it sit for two to three hours; the result is the same when it comes time to slip the skins off. End of recipe.
Blessings to you, Indu. There is so much to be gained in small, focused, quiet activity. Sitting at a table in the comfortable presence of other folks and slipping the skins off of clove after pearly clove of garlic was a beautiful way to pass the mornings. It was like repeating a mantra, clove after clove after clove. This morning as I turned my attention to garlic smashing, I realized that I had forgotten the healing power of Indu’s method of garlic peeling: make it easy.
It has been about 15 years since Indu passed on, but her guidance remains: Make it easy. What’s the hurry? Have patience, it’s getting done. Focus on being in this moment.
After all. Life has enough challenges.
Sala
wordshavecolor.com 
On kindness and coastal healing
So now it’s done. I’ve had the surgeries on both hands, and I’m tired. I go back and forth with the focus and energy it takes to heal. I’ve ranted and raved like Job: “What’s the lesson here? You say there’s a reason for all things. Can I have a clue?”
When I moved back to the East and to the Philadelphia area specifically, I felt I was doing the right thing. After all, New York is the publishing capital of the world, and my mother was ill. In 2001, all the right reasons seemed to be in place. I spent two years in an ashram in upstate New York surrounded by love. But when I moved to the Philadelphia area in 2003, love was replaced by another four letter word — the worst of all four letter words — hate. I hated it here.
All of the reasons and memories of why I had fled the East Coast and anything remotely connected to it (including the southeast) came flooding back. I only saw the busyness and inflexibility of the culture. I did not feel the warmth in human spirit that seemed to flourish in the rains of the Northwest and the sun of California. Oh. And did I mention the cold and snow? I do not like cold and snow and could not imagine ever finding friends here.
I pegged everyone (especially you former manager from Hades), as a scavenger for money, sex, and devious ways to perpetuate racism, sexism, class prejudice and all the other prejudices one could think of. I called a monk (priest) and cried. This place was a new low.
It takes time to heal. The severity of my carpal tunnel and the energy to deal with insurance and other issues threatens to take my full attention. One of the most frustrating experiences has been the delay in posting to my blog as often as I would like. And I had other expectations: I’d be slicing carrots a couple of days after surgery, driving to Trader Joe’s, boiling pots of water for tea or veggies, and back at rehearsal. (I’m coming guys.) But the body has its own ideas.
It also takes time to heal old wounds, and I have plenty of emotional baggage when it comes to the eastern seaboard. But all these considerations have been offset in recent days by the old four letter word — love.
Love brought me home from surgery and stayed for four days cooking meals, washing dishes and sharing hours of conversation. Love referred me to resources that I need.
Love came by to chop the carrots, make the tea, drive me to appointments, and keep my apartment clean. Love stood next to me as I vomited pain medication and recovered from anesthesia. Love went shopping for me, and called me (with different voices) about 10 times a day. Love pulled me out of the apartment to go watch a school football game and sit in the sun rather than stay inside and feel sorry for myself. Love warmed my heart and healed a place that was becoming as chilly as the Pennsylvania winters.
Love, in the form of so many folks, surprised me and talked me through my fear. I didn’t have to do it alone, and that was one of the biggest fears I had when I moved to this place.
Great souls; great hearts. Grace has a way of reminding me that the kindness of others can melt a frozen heart, even here, where I thought no hearts remained. Perhaps that’s the lesson after all.
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Posted in Writing from the heart
Tagged Commentary, creative nonfiction, essay, inspiration, Life Stories, values and spirituality