Yesterday evening I sat on the sofa, tired with a bit of an achy back, thinking about my day, the lefse and other mundane things. Music was playing in the background, the songs in and out of my consciousness. A song came on, (I don't remember now which one), from when I was 12 or 13 and I wondered what my 12 year old self would think about the way my day went. Would I be horrified at the simplicity, the perceived boredom, and do something to change the course of my life? Had my 12 year old self thought of the future at all? Did I just assume that it would be much like my mother's with children, housework, and whatever else I thought she did?
I think that every life, if lived in peace and not war, has long stretches of comfortable activity. Making the bed, making a meal, doing laundry, these are all things that can be considered mundane, but I think that with mindful attention can create contentment.
Where does meaning come to my life? What is meaningful? Does it have to be something of greater scale than kneading a ball of lefse dough? Or perhaps the greatest meaning comes in the small things that we do for ourselves and to help others. I can find contentment in a cosy winter evening, or a walk in the sun. It can come from admiring an orange, for its perfections and imperfections. I can find pleasure in the simple act of making the bed.
By the end of the song I had come to the conclusion that mundane is a negative state of mind and is the opposite of mindful contentment.
So, after thinking of all the angles, I found satisfaction in my afternoon of lefse making and hope that my 12 year old self would find the same.
We made 61 lefse... roll roll roll cook cook cook eat eat eat!
“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.” ~Albert Camus
