Brownell - Zen and the art of housekeeping : the path to finding meaning in your cleaning

ZEN
and the
ART
of
HOUSEKEEPING

The path to finding meaning
in your cleaning

LAUREN CASSEL BROWNELL

Copyright 2008 by Lauren Cassel Brownell
All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any
form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are
made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

Published by
Adams Media, an F+W Publications Company
57 Littlefield Street, Avon, MA 02322. U.S.A.
www.adamsmedia.com

ISBN-13: 978-1-59869-449-9
ISBN-10: 1-59869-449-9
eISBN: 978-1-59869-449-9

Printed in Canada.

J I H G F E D C B A

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To my husband Malcolm,

who has always believed in my crazy dreams,

and to my children,

Wyatt and Gabby,

who inspire me to keep dreaming them.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In her terrific novel Goodnight Nobody, author Jennifer Weiner gives life to lead character Kate Klein, a suburban wife and mother who tries to solve a murder while her kids are at preschoolbetween 9 and noon on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I wrote this book in much the same way. The reading, writing, and research required for this book were completed in stolen momentsbits and pieces middle of the night revelationsnotes scribbled at stoplights and transposing my scribbled notes during my daughters nap time. It became like my third childa being that had to have lots of attention and whatever one-on-one time I could spare. And I loved every minute of the time spent with it.

Thanks go to my precious children, Wyatt and Gabby, and my stepson Casey. They make it worthwhile to try to be a better person in every sense of the word. Thanks to my parents, Sue and Jay Cassel, who have spent a lifetime loving me and supporting me in every endeavor. They taught me to love learning and to love words. I could never have undertaken this project without their support and the background they provided for me. Thanks as well to my wonderful parents-in-law, Malcolm and Mildred Brownell Sr., who have spent the last ten years loving me and supporting me in every endeavor.

To the Zen FriendzI couldnt have done it without you girls! Special thanks to Emily Noble, Stacie Conner, and Cindy Blackwell. Yall are my nearest and dearest even though youre all more than 500 miles away! And to my aunt, Verna Wood, who knew that someday I would be ready for Gift from the Sea.

I am so grateful to Colleen Sell and Indi Zeleny, who by including my work in theirs made me believe I had a story worth telling (Sell is the editor of the bestselling Cup of Comfortseries and Zeleny edited the innovative anthology Herstory: What I Learnedin My Bathtub... and More True Stories on Life, Love, and OtherInconveniences). I owe a large debt of gratitude to Paula Munier and Brendan ONeill at Adams Media for providing me this opportunity and the guidance to make it happen.

And to Malcolm, thank you seems inadequate. I love you today, tomorrow, and always.

Introduction

The best time for planning a book is while youre doing the dishes.
Agatha Christie

T he concept for this book came to me while doing the dishes. Who would ever have thought that I would have something in common with the great mystery writer Agatha Christie? But there I was, elbow deep in soapsuds, bemoaning my fate with every slide of the sponge across the plate, when something (or someone) from somewhere said to me, You have to do it. Why fight it? A feeling of calm came over me in that moment unlike any Ive ever known. It was like that stereotypical view of seeing your surroundings in slow motion when a character in a movie gets itwhen the concept that he really loves her or shes really been a workaholic and now wants to make things right with the ones that she loves dawns on him or her for the first time. With dish soap bubbles popping around me, I looked at my children. I was doing this for them. I realized I was hurrying to finish the dishes so the kitchen would look nice when my husband got home. I was doing it for him. And seeing clearly at the end of that day there was no place on earth I would rather be than in that kitchen, with those kids, waiting for that man to come home, I realized that I was doing it for me as well.

On the evening of my dishwashing epiphany, I started thinking about the importance of being right where I was. Of not wishing away these small moments that make up my life. I also thought about the generations of homemakers of which I was now a part. I realized that at that moment there were literally hundreds of thousands of women doing exactly what I was doing. And then I began to ponder the millions of women who had come before me, who have done this work of keeping a house for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

As keepers of the home, we have an incredible opportunity to make an enormous impact on the quality of the lives we live and the lives of those that we love. This impact can best be felt by doing small things wellthe things that make life worth living, that give our existence its depth and its richness. In my case, I may not be bringing home the bacon. But I am the one who knows exactly how much mayo to put on the bread of each and every member of my family in order for them to have the perfect BLT. I may not be in a laboratory finding a cure for skin cancer. But I am the one that puts sunscreen onto baby shoulders. Should I bemoan my fate? Or should I cherish my place in the world and ponder the enormity of its intimacy? While washing those dishes, I made the conscious decision to choose the latter, and that choice led me to the path of Zen.

Prior to my life as a full-time wife and mother, I was a newspaper sales and marketing executive. I then spent several years as a sales trainer, traveling the country to guide newspaper advertising sales staffs to personal and professional success. Part of my programs focused on time management and organizational skills. I was a classic example of Do as I saynot as I do, and at times I felt a bit like a fraud. But I shared good information and helped people along the way. Since beginning my Zen journey, however, I am much more authentic. I will not share anything in these pages that I have not experienced for myself. If it can work for me, it can work for you as well.