The Rhythm of Life
For the past 2 years Ubalo went to an amazing Waldorf based preschool. His wonderful teachers would always talk about creating rhythm in our days. And we parents would desire this for ourselves because rhythm in our New York City lives would be something like a miracle. We rush our kids out the door in the morning, we hope they’re good at school while we run to the subway, wait in line for our coffee, hurriedly work, and rush home to pick them up without having to pay for that extra hour, shove some food down their throats and make sure they’re asleep at a reasonable time so that we can do it all again the next day! There were moments of rhythm in our days, and I’d say we got into a routine that worked for us, but it was rarely rhythmic. We try to create little moments of rhythm in our day, like lighting a candle or singing a song before a meal. Everyone washes dishes after a meal with a joyous song, one task leads into another, rhythm.
It’s hard to say the least.
And so I wondered, when we moved, how would I create this rhythm that I’d been seeking for my children and for our family? But guess what, life here is rhythmic by nature. It happens as a rhythm, sometimes almost musical the way things work and by the nature of the tasks.
Dishes are washed by hand after each meal, often by the children (which Ubalo was loathe to do at home, but has offered to do more than a few times here!) simply because if you don’t wash them now, you won’t have them to prepare the next meal (which you must prepare because there’s no takeout here).
The act of sweeping is rhythmic, (no vacuum cleaners here!) small broom made of thin but strong sticks chick chick chick on the dirt to sweep up the fallen leaves, on the concrete to sweep of the dirt from the night before. You have to sweep each morning because dirt is inevitably dragged into the house on every surface of your body.
The mopping, which we hear starting around 5:30 every morning, “Splash” rag drops in the water bucket, “Pour” as it is rung out, “Slap” on the floor, and “swish, swish, swish” as the floor is mopped in a flowing pattern. Again and again and again until the whole floor has been cleaned. It’s a beautiful rhythm to wake up to.
Washing clothes, doing dishes, picking, sorting, cutting, peeling. It happens over and over and over again. It’s the music of the day. And when the sun goes down, we go down with it. You must settle down and relax when it gets dark. There’s not a ton of light outside, the mosquitos start to bite, people are tired from a long day, the darkness releases real melatonin because there’s no excess light, screens, etc.
As a visitor, if I tried to do my sweeping or mopping here they’d laugh and not let me, so I don’t always get to BE part of they rhythm that is created. But I see it and I feel it and I love it! I’m sure once we move to our new house (next week after our beds are made!) I won’t have a choice but to join into the music of life here.
“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vestibulum id ligula porta felis euismod semper.”