Routines I have loved

Routine is our topic for this week on daily headspa. I have a love/hate relationship with routine. Some routines make me feel safe and productive. Some make me feel trapped and like a stupid fool who can’t get off the wheel, out of the cage, out of her own head.

And some routines I have truly loved.

I loved the routine of my dad waking me up at 5:30 in the morning every day during my last year of high school so we could go for a run together. I didn’t act like I loved it then, I was down right mean and ornery on those mornings until after the run with the endorphins had kicked in (and I had run circles around the old man). But now that he’s gone and my knees are gone, I look back on that time as one of my favorites.

I loved the routine of washing dishes in the kitchen at Iona. Keeping my hands going while the conversations rambled and ranged from sex to politics to faith to someone’s grandmother’s black forest cake recipe. I loved the routine of calling up the suppliers to the “wee island,” having to chat for a while before placing the order; getting to know the women and men on the other end of the line slowly through a bit of banter and talk about the weather and the ferry crossings.

And right now I love the routine of evenings here in Darwin, when the sun finally stops strangling all of us, dropping us into a breezy patch of shade where we can sigh a survivor’s sigh, “Whew, made it,” and celebrate the fact that our hearts didn’t explode nor our eyeballs pop out in the heat of the day.

Although I would still say that I prefer adventure to routine, these are some of the routines that give life rather than suck it dry. And for that, I am routinely grateful.