The Zen of Washing Mini Blinds

There is room for meditation in tasks of daily living. I would definitely not call washing the mini blinds a task of daily living since I have never attempted to do this before...I would just toss the old and buy some new blinds. Trying to be more GREEN and not really knowing what I really want on the windows, I decided that it was time for a serious wash..even by my very low standards of cleanliness. I filled up the tub with hot sudsy water (thanks to lavendar fabulouso) and dumped the first one in. It really took a while to figure out the best way to get the job done. The blinds were not cooperating, hiding the dirt between their slats. After first finding a comfortable position by padding the tub and leaning over into the sudsy water with both hands free to work, I did find a comfortable rhythm in working with the blind totally submerged and running the cloth over the back of one slat and the front of the next slat in a rhythm....that's when the zen kicked in. I noticed that all I needed to be concerned with was the slat I was working on and the rest would take care of itself. I did not experience this until the second mini blind. The first washing was full of struggle and thinking 'how many more slats until I am finished with this sucker'. The gift of getting into the zen of the task was I gave up the struggle for it to be over and just stayed in the moment. Thicht Naht Hahn has a short story in his book The Miracle of Mindfulness about his friend and getting into mindfulness in doing the dishes. So this was my time to be mindful in doing the mini blinds....the gift of the day!