The Comfort of Routine

On Friday night, I got home and discovered that our house had been broken into. Not much was taken - some cash and (possibly) Trent's passport, checkbook and some expired codeine. Oh yeah, and my sense of security. I hate the idea of someone marching through my bedroom, rifling through my assorted papers and peering into desk drawers and decorative boxes, tracking in leaves and needles from our backyard. Whoever it was did lock the door behind them, which caused a bit of puzzlement.

I was a bit shaken up, butterflies in my stomach and mind racing. My good friend who I'd originally planned to go out to dinner with came over to keep me company while waiting for Trent and the police officer to arrive. As I was showing her the "evidence", I was a bit embarrassed and shamed by how much of the messiness was due to our own end of the week clutter that I didn't want to clean up until the police report in case I destroyed some important clue.

But Saturday was a brand new day. I woke up, ate my oatmeal with chia seeds, almonds, dried cranberries, cinnamon and nutmeg. I sat in the glow of my magic light box. I wrote my morning pages, checked my email, posted a blog entry and decided to go on a trail run that I'd registered for, but that I'd almost talked myself out of due to the necessity of guarding and securing the house. Gradually, my mind calmed, both from the distraction and the reminder that life goes on.

When I returned home, I stopped by our local bakery and coffee shop for lunch and coffee to go, where my favorite barista listened sympathetically and gave us a free coffee.

And then I cleaned and tidied and made our place our own again - folding laundry, changing the sheets, recycling papers, sweeping and cleaning the bathroom. Not fun per se, but enormously calming and satisfying. At the same time, Trent was closing up the broken cat door and securing the side door to prevent someone from getting in a second time (and he also recycled tons of papers).

At 4 p.m. I shifted gears and went back to the recipe challenge making Sugar-frosted Cardamom Braid and Indian-style rice to go with dal from one of Madhur Jaffrey's cookbooks and some nan acquired from the free table at work. But those are topics for another blog post. The kneading, chopping and stirring was so comforting and meditative that I'm almost back to normal self (though I am thinking that maybe we should consider getting a dog as a deterrent to further break-ins).

What routines center you?