Accepting the Mess

Living is not always easy

I feel a bit like my head is in the clouds. Maybe that’s what happens when you make a whirlwind trip to see family. I’m in Goshen in the morning and by early afternoon, I’m sitting by the water’s edge in Baltimore, drinking coffee and eating a croissant sandwich with my daughter’s family. Soaking in their lives for a few days, we mostly switch off ours. And when we return home, our life turns back on, full blast.

But, in my bones, I’m still soaking in the buzz of the city, the inquisitiveness and sweetness of my two-and-a-half year old granddaughter, the easy back-and-forth conversation with my daughter. As I mix up and roll out dough for croissants for the farmers’ market here in my town, my mind is in high gear, reviewing so many new stories I’ve heard about the hard pieces of life. And as I sell cheese and sourdough bread and pastries to customers, I soak in the varied tales of daily woes and wins: a new baby, a stroke, a grandson’s visit, a surgery. With another family gathering during the weekend, I hear more descriptions of the messy work of living.

Life is messy. There are no neat lines to follow. We can only see clearly what’s right in front of us. The rest is hidden up ahead. We live with ragged edges that sometimes get caught on things. We live in limbo not always knowing how things will turn out. We live with pain and sorrow, fear and anxiety, a yearning for better days.

Just as I try to notice the good and the beautiful in life and lean into the calm, I’ve also learned to embrace the mess. As I sit with each part, a pattern can emerge that helps me move beyond it. And it’s those uneven edges that sometimes bring me the most beauty because they tell me that I’m fully hooked into this life and fully aware of what it holds.

In my garden, the poison ivy is coming up among the hostas, the weeds make their inroads among the flowers and the grass overflows onto the sidewalk. In my house, the dog hair tries to fill the corners, the recycling sometimes overflows and the succulents don’t always survive. And in my life, there are days with tears, or low energy or unexpected events. But when I’m present to all of it, I notice how rich life is.

And as I sit around the outdoor table with my siblings and their partners, as the sun goes down and the cool evening air sets in, the messiness of life becomes a comfort. The dog is peeing over in the grass while my partner keeps an eye out for her. A coat sprawls over a chair, a bag sits on the ground. Dishes and glasses fill the table while the pizza bakes. And, yet, as we eat the woodfired pizza from our woodfired oven,“This is the best pizza ever,” we say. Right here, right now.