The Morning Routine Turns to Soup

From my journal pages earlier this week:

My alarm goes off for the third time. The darkness of the morning and silence of the house envelope me as I wander toward the coffee pot. Pouring my coffee, I meander back to bed to enjoy my warm mug from the cozy safety of under my covers. I don't feel like a boss or a CEO or a badass or a doer or a leader. I feel like a hibernator, quiet and gentle, and like my ‘work’ isn't going to have the same inertia that you might expect from a weekday morning. We are going into lockdown here in California and I'm taking the call to shelter-in-place rather literally on this cold and crisp morning. 

 I scroll recipes in the New York Times cooking app, searching for comfort, nourishment, and something to do with my farmers market goodies from the day before. I only for a moment wonder why I'm doing this right now. I'm not normally cooking at 7:00 in the morning. 

I settle on a butternut squash soup. 

 Without checking my email or noting my long to-do list for the day, I amble toward the kitchen, finding myself almost unconsciously pulling the ingredients for the soup from the fridge. My morning routine goes by the wayside as I prepare the soup.

 With each ingredient, I add and chop and soften, allowing myself to cook the soup, nourish myself and my family, ignoring the slippery ideas of what I should be doing, the monkey mind that bounces from centered to fearful to mindful thinking to fluttering insecurities.

Hush, I told myself. Enough with all the thinking. Just stir the soup.

Quiet the mind.

 There is no rush to know the answers of what is to come, no call or appointment to complete.

 Only the warmth of curiosity and the cozy heart of a slower pace to explore. 

 Rushing will not get us, or me, or you to satisfaction any sooner. It will not unveil the crystal ball of a clear outcome or a certainty for what is to come. Sure, we'd all love that elusive gift of clarity, but sometimes it comes in a package of not doing versus doing. 

Rushing and doing and achieving will only mean eating the soup faster… versus slowing to savor.

So, this morning, I invite you to find the softness. Be guided by the urges to nest, curl up, read a book, call a friend, and make some soup.

Try not to worry. It is going to be okay.

 The outcome will be the same whether we rush and plan or soften and savor….so for today, I choose the soup. 

 xo, Grace

Soup photo by Jezebel Rose on Unsplash. I forgot to take a picture of my soup, but it looked a lot like her image. :) Here's the recipe.

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