The zen art of dig dig digging

A rough morning. I got pulled over today. The police woman was behind me for a while before she put her lights on. I cannot tell you her reasoning, boredom, practice, end of the month quota? Either way, it wasn't terribly upsetting for me. I wasn't speeding, she just decided to call in my license plate for fun. Our registration was expired. Oops. No sticker on the license plate that indicated as much (no sticker at all here in the QC).

I was cursing myself, but still not too overwhelmed by the whole situation, just kept Rohan entertained while she checked up my license and the deal with not getting warning about this expiration in the mail. I was a bit nervous about her mentioning that she may have to get me towed as well as a fine. Just as a reminder, 8 months pregnant, 2 and a half year old in the back, hot outside, 5 km or more to the house, and as I found out, no water in my bottle. Not ideal.

She came back and graciously informed me that I did not have to get my vehicle towed, as she handed me my fine without looking me in the eye. I didn't even look at it as I drove away, still cursing myself and slightly unhappy about forking out, what? Max $200? What is the going rate for these things anyway. So I made it home and before I left the van I took a look at the fine $438. Without a moment of hesitation my water pipe burst and I offered the people on our street the sound of my howling cry. Are you fucking kidding me?

Sobbing I let Rohan out of the car to play in his sand trap as I sat and cried uncontrollably in the van for...........a little while anyway. We go inside. I am still incapable of even speaking and trying to avoid Rohan for pure guilt of releasing my self pity without a tiny speck of self control. Rohan just starts begging me to go outside and dig dig dig. So out we go. I sit on the steps, still lacking control of my emotions while Rohan contentfully digs in the sand. Than he starts harassing me to dig with him. Umm last thing I want to do kid, really.

But I relent. There is only so much 'poor me' action that can happen around a two year old before they become very very impatient with you. So I sat in the sand with him and started digging. As I sat I felt my worries slowly melt out of my body and into my little blue plastic shovel. Dazed and numb I sat and dug, ridding the sand of rocks, dumping the sand into a large green pail. Over and over, scoop, dump, scoop, dump. Repetitive motions. And than it was gone. I felt like myself again, I start interacting with Rohan on a nice level, without the sound of my whinny baby voice.

Rohan has taught me the zen like quality that Buddha Monks have known about for, well, ever. You know the zen sand tables? Yup that's what we were doing. It is amazing how something so simple can completely alter your frame of mind, flipping that frown to it's rightly position on your face, and washing that nasty negative away to let the positive shine on through.

This is not to say that I suddenly aqcuired $438 extra from on of our many trees, I am still in deep doo doo, but I don't feel super stressed anymore. It will work out. It always does. I even got a little load of free wood shortly after. Not bad. I feel even better after having eating a nice large bowl of ice cream! The Zen art of eating ice cream with be along shortly!

This just confirms my thoughts that Rohan teaches me much more than I could teach him!