Straighten up your room before you save the world

What "self-love" looks like in the realm of deeper emotional work, and the fight to prioritize what's most important:Ourselves.

A happy find on a mid-week, post-work hike at a nearby state park. Surrounded by the smell of wet moss and the splashes of a joyed dog, this was a beautiful step away from the run, run, run of normal western living. 3.29.23

This week, a particular verse of Ron Padgett’s prose poem “How to be Perfect” rang through my head:

Take care of things close to home first. Straighten up your room
before you save the world. Then save the world.

That’s probably because this week has featured a disastrously unkempt bedroom.

But it also points me toward a fact I keep trying to avoid: I’m too expectant of my day and its hours. I’m forgetful of the fact that I am in fact a human being, sometimes negligent of basic human needs of food and water, rest and solitude.

I try to go out and save the world. But I’ve lost the habit of making my bed beforehand. Or sitting for meditation before heading off to work. Or finding time in my week to sit and do nothing but journal and quietly trace my yet-formed notions into precipitates of thought.

Because when life becomes hectic, that resting is the first thing to fall away.

“To rest is a special and sacred thing,” a teacher at one Plum Village (Thich Nhat Hanh’s monasteries) says in this wonderful dharma talk I listened to this morning. He describes what we all already know: that ours is a culture of doing, running, and multitasking.

“If we are not running,” he says, “we are not doing anything. We are not accomplishing anything. Our tendency is not to be here. Our tendency is to run.”

But to practice mindfulness, focusing on something present now, is to try to touch stillness. To touch inner peace. To feel more alive in our bodies, even when that means touching tension, stress, or pain. To rest, even if it seems indulgent.

“Resting may seem like a beautiful and wonderful privilege,” he continues. “And maybe we say, ‘Who am I to rest when the world is burning and there is so much suffering?’ But how can you contribute and how can you offer if you cannot be there for yourself?”

It’s wonderful how much “self-love” has become a normal part of everyday vocabulary. But what more intimate and skillful self-work invites is not just “self-love” as getting a pedicure or buying a new trinket or booking a vacation.

Do we have pain in our bodies, do we have places in our hearts that we are afraid to touch?

Knowing this, sensing this, feeling this, and comforting ourselves with “I am here, I am here [anger, sorrow, grief, pain, frustration, envy], I am here and I will take care of you.”

That is powerful self-love. And practice, which calls for space and solitude.

As I’ve settled into the routine of working, hosting, and spending time with those I love, I’ve faltered in all the introspective realms of true self-care. My time to write has shrunk to a few quick journal entries a week. My meditations in the morning range from ten minutes of sitting to just trying my best to appreciate my coffee fully for 30 seconds.

So today, I indulged. I canceled plans. They were cool plans, potentially helpful and educational and spiritual plans, but it didn’t matter. After a week of non-stop doing, I need a sacred day of non-doing.

I appreciate the spiritual concept of a sabbath. I particularly love Wendell Berry’s approach, writing at least one poem each Sunday for years. He was an engaged member of his ecological community every day of the week, appreciating trees and birds and his beloved “Wild Things.” But for those of us confined by desk and chair during the week, Sunday is the sunny day to shake off and stretch our toes and rejoice.

It takes time to build something good. It takes time to grow something, from seed to fruit. It takes time to meditate or write or truly connect with your own inner being.

Mary Oliver writes of this solitude. In her first essay in the collection “Upstream,” she describes brilliantly how gallant you have to defend your own solitude. How, if you have a writer as a friend, you should rejoice when they’re late for plans. Rejoice even more if they flat-out cancel. True work is getting done.

Anne Lamott also writes about this needed isolation, as well as Annie Dillard, John McPhee, and almost every other writer whose words I admire and love.

It’s hard to rationalize prioritizing something so muted, so conceivably self-oriented. But solitude is the greatest gift you can give yourself and the world around you—your employer, your partner, your family, your roommate, your friends.

I’d love to hear from you all. What is your Sabbath practice? How do you best enjoy your own company? How does your body feel during that time, or afterward? What about your heart?

As we all learn together how to be more present in our lives and be truer friends to ourselves, it’s great to hear from others on this path of living. Feel free to comment and message and share your wisdom, it’s dearly welcomed.

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