some little nothings

Emergencies, of varying degrees, often interrupt the daily movements and routines of life with little to no warning. No gentle knock on the door prior to, no phone call to request one’s next best availability; emergencies much prefer to take centre stage with expeditiously swift speed, demanding not only enormous degrees of attention, but the seemingly instantaneous abandon of one’s current goings on. Even ritualized routines have their work cut out for them when facing the all-encompassing might of an emergency.

While there are angels among us that are not only well-versed in such cases of calamity, but excel in both mitigating and managing even the most treacherous of cases that emergencies can toss our ways; these special few are most commonly recognizable by their varying uniforms (granted many bear no uniform at all). The rest of us, lacking such acclimatization to the nature of meeting crises on a daily basis, must direct all our attentions to the beast that’s taken the stage, and whether we like it or not, recalibrate, realign, and refocus our days and our nights to its required accommodations.

Routines themselves can be such a difficult practice to honour, as the very nature of them seem to request constant recalibration. While routine can so gently nourish daily life with feelings of balance, progress, and peace, they may also tend to invigorate, inspire, and encourage..tinkering. Adjusting. Improving, be it big or small. Each tinker to the routine can feel like a victory, as if a small step forward has been made in the honing process of positively developing ourselves sequentially through action. However, it’s also with each tinker of the gears that it becomes more and more difficult to watch the house of cards one’s built up collapse when life tosses a wrench in our direction, and the routines are halted to an uncomfortable stop.

One must not only watch the cards fall, but promptly dive into a new routine, often a foreign routine, that accommodates the space, energy, and demands of the emergency. What was once aligned in sensical sequence, is no longer. What can make this abrupt halt, and, just as abrupt, recalibration to a new routine, so disorienting can often be misunderstood. It’s not the missing out on our daily visit to the building we pick up and put down weights; nor is it the disappointment that our sourdough starter is no longer useable after not being fed for a week. Rather, it’s our attachment to what we once saw as an aligned way of moving through each day being overhauled by forces much greater than we could ever have anticipated.

But what is alignment, if it only exists in a space without flexibility?

It is through such challenges, such critical circumstances, where we have a choice in how we would like to meet both the moment, and ourselves. The choice is blatant: move forward and realign, or move backwards and stay exactly as we were. There is, fortunately, a surprising sense of relief that comes with the courage it takes to forge forward and relinquish our routines, especially in the face of an emergency. A seemingly joyful acquiescence in the presence of what was thought to be solely disrupting, inconvenient, and distressing. To show up, meet such a happening, and realign ones’ routine accordingly to be of service to those in need is a beautiful surrender to living in the present moment, and honouring the routine we forget to honour the most in our every day; that is, the routine of trusting ourselves enough to know that we can always find a new normal, a new routine, and a new alignment.