The sacredness of our routine

Years ago the CBC came to do a show for the program Land and Sea about my rugs. I had been living here on this property for about ten years at that time and had two young children. I remember us picking rhubarb as a family for the camera. There we were all "Little House on the Prairie" gathering food and looking so wholesome. And we were really. It was a fun few days and made a lovely show. I was so happy because I had watched Land and Sea with my own dad as a child. 

On the second day of the taping, Charlie the camera man rushed excitedly into the kitchen and told us about seeing a pileated woodpecker up the road. At that time they were not as common in Nova Scotia as they are now. He was excited and took his camera to go see if he could spot it again. I remember being happy that he had found something so beautiful. I had never seen one myself.

Since that day I have seen that bird, and now the children of that bird, a hundred times on my daily walks. And when I do I think of Charlie's excitement and feel a tinge of it myself. It is a tall bird, as big as a crow perhaps, and it is black and white with a bright red skullcap. It makes a shrill warble and it taps hard on trees, boring large holes in them. I often hear it before I see it. Once in my own yard down by the grapevine I heard one right before it flew by the side of my head. I narrowly escaped a collision. Mostly though, I see them high on a telephone pole where they give me a perfect view of their beauty.

Though it is a common sight on this road, I usually take a moment to stop and watch. Some things happen again and again but they should not be taken for granted. Some things are beautiful over and over again and we need to breathe them in.

This is true of the pileated woodpecker but it is also true of family dinners, daily walks with friends, or a night out for supper at the only restaurant in town. It is easy to let things slip into the regular or the mundane. It is easy to take something for granted. It is sadly easy to find something boring because of frequency or accessibility. What if instead you did one of these things like you had never done it before. Is that even possible, or am I talking fairy talk again? 

Perhaps I need to take a little woodpecker wisdom into every bit of my life. Perhaps I need to celebrate supper in front of the TV by setting the coffee table, lighting a candle, putting ice cubes and lemon in the glasses of water. Finding in myself the knowledge that everything I do is worth doing.

My walk is new every day partly because of the generations of woodpeckers that light up the poles on occasion, partly because every day I look for something new. A new shape in the seedpods, my shadow on the pavement, the way the trees are growing in the ditches. I am always looking to see what is blooming and what is in season even in the winter. There is always something happening in the sky, in the fields, and in our lives. There is no routine that does not have a sacredness about it. Just the fact that we get to be there for it is sacred. And when I am at my best, I can feel that whether the coffee table is set or not. I don't need lemon water to remind me that another day has passed and I am at the table again. I can feel it in my heart.