Routine

These days, I blame Yarrow for my lack of routine. I sigh and invent memories of consistency in my college days, and of routines embraced in my single days, my husband isn’t fooled. Before Yarrow, I blamed him, before him I blamed the demands of work, before work I blamed college life. The truth is, I embrace routine in memory, or in anticipation.  Never in reality, it’s one of the reasons I can never actually get addicted to coffee or cigarettes - habits are too hard to form, and they require more memory than I have avaliable to them.

 I am trying, on a semi-daily basis to build a routine and to cultivate the ritual of my life, but I haven’t quite made it yet. Pursuing ritual though, makes me think of the people I know whose lives are rich in it. A friend out west, whom I haven’t seen in years is distant enough now to live as an example. I see her photos, write occassionally, and wonder at her energy. Four children, a happy husband, a lovely home, a quarterly journal, and food to die for ~ I’d love to know how her days go. Not to imitate, but to be inspired. If I didn’t know better, I’d try to blame my “artistic temperment” and claim she’s mundane enough to settle into routine, but I have some pots from when she was throwing, and her pots are better than mine, they have more character, more depth, more artistry. I see her sketches in her journal and know it’s not the lack of art that produces consistency in her, rather, it seems she has chosen to truly make her life a work of art. Her home, her family, her statement to the world whereas I am always distracted, first by one project then another, I forget they need to be formed into a whole. Into a life that can be enriched by writing, by pottery, by buttery croissants and layered cocktails, but which is, in itself a thing of beauty. This doesn’t require a strict routine, but a sense of rhythm, a rightness to each activity, an attention to detail, and a consistency of attitude. Perhaps viewed this way I will be able to truly embrace ritual in the present, even with Yarrow, with my husband, and with the inconsistency of my own restless mind.

Do you have a real daily routine, a semi-routine, an order for your day?