“I just ate poop!”
“What!?”
“I think I just ate poop. I need your help.”
This was a real life exchange I had with my wife yesterday. I was running out the door for a photo shoot, she was putting the baby down for a nap, our dog Rocco was barking and losing his freaking mind about absolutely no reason and we were moving a lot of different directions all at once and a little too fast. My wife had fed our daughter a bit earlier and there was food everywhere… quinoa, bits of noodles, crumbs, bigger crumbs, you name it. With an infant who’s just starting to eat solid food, a lot of it ends up… well… everywhere. Keep that in mind for later.
So, as I was rushing to get all my stuff together and she was wrangling our feral daughter into nap time, our daughter had a… “movement”. My wife is now kissing me goodbye while keeping the baby from flipping herself off the changing table like a squishy Dominque Dawes and changing a diaper at the same time. We’re both moving too fast. Neither of us “doing what we’re doing”.
Neither of us aware of the moment but leaning more into what’s next, not necessarily what’s now. As I spun out of the room to leave, my wife turned to say goodbye and in that small moment a “little surprise” fell out of my daughter’s diaper onto my wife’s arm. A little speck, a crumb, a tiny morsel of it’s contents. Whirling back around to tend to her daughter, my wife noticed the supposed piece of food on her arm from our daughter’s earlier lunch/throw all the food on the ground session. Her hands full, one with a diaper and one with a baby, she instinctually used her mouth to grab the piece of food off her arm in order to spit it out in the sink after finishing with the baby. Well… turns out… that wasn’t a piece of her lunch.
So often we get caught up in too many things in a moment that is meant for only one. We forget to do what we’re doing and start doing 4 other things instead. Something is going to suffer when we split our awareness and it’s usually us. I take that back, it’s always us. So can you do what you’re doing for the rest of the day and tomorrow? In each moment, do only what that moment needs… nothing else. If you’re in a conversation with someone, listen. If you’re cooking, cook. If you’re reading, read. If you’re doing yoga, breath. Whatever you’re doing, whatever the task big or small, do ONLY that task. Nothing else.
There’s time, we just don’t always see it. Do too much at once and you may end up eating shit. Figuratively, metaphorically, spiritually or… literally.
And for those times when you do end up eating poop regardless of your mindful moves, Buddha like awareness and ever enlightened intuitive acumen, give yourself a little grace. They’re not all gonna be hits. Some days are just going to be B sides.
