What Bothers

What bothers me the most these days?
Not having enough solitude and silence, both outer and inner.
I still fret about not having enough time to do all the things I want to do in a day.
I still can’t just do nothing
I resent having to take care of survival needs: shopping, cooking, cleaning, exercising, relating...
Underneath that resentment is my fear of being trapped. That old devil.
I have not accepted that the demands of those needs are part of life.
Might as well enjoy them.
What a difference it would make not to fight them.
Feel the gratitude of having so much abundance, so much colour, texture, life-giving sustenance.
Deepen into the pleasure of seeing, tasting, touching, smelling, sensing, and appreciating the goodness that is so accessible to me.
The comfort and joy in cleanliness, order, fitness, movement, wholesomeness, good company, simple kindness, resonance with another soul.
I am chosen for these tasks because I am the best candidate for them at this moment.
I have much to learn from these seemingly mundane chores, because they are a spiritual practice in themselves.
There is stillness in chopping vegetables. There is solitude in making dinner. There is surrender in just listening to another with ears and heart open, and mouth shut. There is dance in sweeping the floor.
If only I accept it, allow it, stay in it.
Then a song might come, and give me a new voice. Silence may descend, wrap me in its mantle of balm.
My fear will sprout wings and lift off into the light of day, proclaiming its new name:
Freedom! Freedom!