Seasoning the Cast Iron

I’ve taken to seasoning the Cast iron pans. We own a few of them and they are worse for wear after misinformation on care and washing.

Seasoning cast iron has always been intimidating, but I’m moving through intimidation these days. Just noticing the road over the mountain instead of the mountain. So I did some research and chose a method and here we are….with varying levels of success so far.

Cast iron is a good metaphor for life – you just have to keep working at it. It’s never perfect the first time, you hit grooves where everything is going well and nothing sticks, but sometimes you cut corners or fall asleep early and you have to catch up the next day….or over the next few weeks

Life is in the day to day. It’s not big sweeping moments…it’s lots of little moments stacked up. Sweeping the floor and eating ice cream and folding laundry and sleeping and showering and laughing and breathing. Connecting to ourselves and to our community…that’s in those little moments too. Moment by moment, where we place our attention, helps guide us to our next step.

Some days, I place my attention too much on social media or the things about the house that annoy me or how scary the news is. Most days, I do better and place my attention in the moment – the smile my son has for me, the folding of laundry, the taste of coffee, the way I still flutter a bit when I get to hold hands with my husband.

The seasoning of cast iron happens to be a helpful task for me to reset into being in the moment. So it’s one I’m cherishing these days.

be here now

When I get frustrated with small things, when the temperature of a room makes me feel trapped or the music playing makes me angry, I try to catch myself and breathe into the moment. Be here now. Feel the floor with my feet, breathe in and out, just be right here.

So often, I’m trying to be somewhere else – thinking about how I have to do laundry, or clean the bathroom, or that there’s a pandemic and no one seems to be wearing masks outside or I feel like I have to figure out where in the country or world we are going to settle down. These thoughts end up coloring everything I do with broad brush strokes of “not enough”. And when I take a moment to be here now, I remember that everything I need and want is right here. My body, my breath, my husband, our son, our food and water and comfy bed.

This doesn’t minimize the real worries and stress of everyday life. But when I anchor into the moment, I give myself more space and presence to meet the tough stuff when I need to. I give myself the reminder that feeling good, feeling grounded, being in alignment is as simple as breathing deep and remembering that the universe is working with us.

start

And so it begins, another new chapter. Another step in this series of steps that is life. Instead of yearning for some new creative outlet, I am exercising a creative outlet I already have – writing. Instead of daydreaming about writing, I’m writing. Instead of believing I can’t put my voice out there until I have a perfectly planned out arc of content, I believe in the process of beginning and getting better and clearer as I go. 

Instead of waiting for the perfect time to write, I’m using the time I can find to imperfectly communicate and express myself. 

When I look at where I am now, I realize I’ve always been taking the next step – even when it seemed undoable. So I’ll just keep doing it.