I don't think I was always this way. I remember as a kid, going to my horse riding lesson each week and afterwards, I would want to stay in my (dirty, grotty) riding gear as long as possible and I didn't want to wash my hands, because they smelled like horse. Which I loved. Now? Well, I suppose I became a grown up, or perhaps, I became responsible for keeping the house clean and free from dirt, and horse.
I imagine there is a continuum of sorts for dirt tolerance, and my little one is somewhere at the very high tolerance end and I am somewhere at the very low tolerance end. And I wonder how healthy it is to be where I am. It's almost like I've developed a little anxiety about it. I'm certainly super vigilant about not bringing dirt into the house, and I'll acknowledge that I'm a little too vigilant about it.
This little one teaches me every single day, showing myself to me, showing me all the parts of me that have become - out of touch, I suppose. I mean we are creatures of the Earth as much as any other animal, yet we build ourselves nice clean houses and have nice clean clothes and remove ourselves from it, keep it 'out there'. But in doing that, we lose touch with our connection to our Earth, and with much of our abilities to ground, and to sense, feel, from contact with the Earth. Quite literally, our feet are designed to sense things from the ground up, and yet we cover them up, most often in synthetic materials, and lose our ability to tune in and connect with the Earth. We do ourselves a disservice.
I know it is something I need to work on, relaxing myself enough to forget about keeping the house (and me) clean and instead, focus on enjoying the moments of connection, through bare feet on the Earth. Not just on the special days when we go to the beach or to a park and kick off our shoes, but in the everyday. In the vegie garden, is probably a good place to start.
Taking lessons from my kid, every single day.
