The Year of the Ritual

With a backpack full of snacks, enough clothes to see us comfortable into the April evening, reusable grocery bags and transit tickets, we boarded the streetcar after my son's choir lesson Thursday and set out to accomplish something that has been on my "to do" list every week for the last twelve months: shop at our local farmer's market. This foray into stalls of local fruits and vegetables took almost as much planning as our yearly trip out West, which is likely why I haven't managed to pull it off on a weekly basis.

The Dufferin Grove market is one of the most well-stocked farmer's markets in the city. I picked up fresh cabbage, rainbow carrots, parsnips, and Jerusalem artichokes only hours out of the ground. Here you can find fish fresh from Georgian Bay, organic bread baked on the premises in an oven handmade from mud and straw, and buy eggs laid earlier that day. I love everything about this farmer's market and farmer's markets in general. They are a shorthand for the good life: buying fresh, local produce outdoors and mingling with your neighbours, no fluorescent lights, and live music in the background. I don't even have to worry about abandoning my shopping cart because of a rowdy kid as both of mine went off to pretend to be vendors selling "chives" (a.k.a. grass clippings) with a motley crew of homeschoolers at a make-shift stall. This is so much more pleasant than the fruit and vegetable section at No Frills, I can't help but wonder why it has it taken me a year to get back here.

What I told myself every week for the past fifty-one weeks was that I didn't have enough time to get over to Dufferin Grove. Who has the time for a fifteen minute walk and extended browsing at a farmer's market? Certainly not the mom I met later that evening at the playground. Her daughter is in my son's class at school and this was her first foray to the market this year as well. "I don't even have time to drop my daughter off at daycare," she said. Her own mother walks over every morning to help out as this woman rushes off to work. And with meal planning, cooking, cleaning, lessons, laundry, communication with family and friends, etc., etc., there's barely time to think. "I remember my mother lying on the couch in the afternoons and reading a book," she said, flabbergasted. "I never have time for that. But what do you cut out?"

I know how she feels, being back at work part time myself. But having spent the past four years at home with my children I know that having unstructured time doesn't necessarily mean we structure our days any differently. My vegetables weren't any more local or organic when I was at home, my house certainly wasn't any cleaner, and I ate just as many meals out because I ran out of time to cook. When it comes to living the good life more time isn't necessarily all that we need.

Aristotle said "We are what we repeatedly do." Which is to say, we are the sum of our practices. If I'm honest with myself, I have to admit that going to the farmer's market wasn't all that difficult or time-consuming, the real reason I don't get there weekly is simply because I'm not in the habit. Because we ate at the market we were back at home, veggies unpacked, children bathed, playroom tidied, teeth flossed, stories read and lights out half an hour earlier than normal; nothing lost and a fridge full of Ontario vegetables gained.

Perhaps we need good habits more than we need a couple of extra hours in a day. Looking at my children I see how essential a sense of routine - of the habitual - is to their sense of well-being. We don't operate on a "to-the-minute" schedule in my family, but we do operate on a familiar rhythm. There is a Chinese proverb that says, "Habits are cobwebs at first, cables at last." This has proven true in our family. In fact my children still operate on habits - routines - developed when they were babies. Both of my children needed to cuddle and nurse for a long time when they first woke up in the morning. While beyond nursing now, they still make a ritual of taking an extended time of comfort and cuddling in the early morning. We call it the "morning stories;" each child picks something to read and this gives us a chance to wake up slowly and in each others arms. I've learned through trial and error those good habits that help my kids function at their best: they need to eat well and regularly, get some fresh air, engage with me and their dad in some one-on-one time, and have lots of opportunity to play. All of this makes up our daily routine. Only now do I realize that I need my own routines and good habits to make life as enjoyable as it should be.

Over the past few months I've come to the realization that so many of the problems I have in growing in the fruit of the Spirit stem from the lack of good habits in my life. We run out of food because I don't have a consistent shopping schedule, and my bathroom sink constantly carries a brown film because I get to cleaning it when I can (which is never), and more often than not I don't feel the joy I should feel as a parent because I haven't made a point of scheduling some weekly time to spend together as a family. Consequently I'm in the bad habit of spending most of my days impatient, frustrated, and cranky as opposed to kind, generous, and joyful.

I recently took out a book from the library called "This Year I Will..." by M.J. Ryan. In it she asks an arresting question: am I living the life that wants to live in me? I answered with a despondent "no." Everything I consider important (making a soulful home, shopping in organic markets, buying bulk to reduce packaging, daily exercise, weekly family nights, regular devotional time, cooking with less meat) I rarely do simply because I'm not in the habit. And so M.J.'s book has inspired me to make this year the year of the HABIT - or perhaps RITUAL is a better word, it's much prettier and literally means "a procedure regularly followed." Thursday night? No, I'm busy. That's when I perform my ritual of the farmer's market...want to come along?

So I've decided this month to focus on the fruit of discipline or self-control in order to make my "Year of the Ritual" a reality. I want all those things I consider priorities to actually take their rightful place amongst the weekly rituals of my life. I don't want to kick myself for missing the market (again) while I'm shopping at No Frills. I want to grow in discipline - in the ability to live out what's really important to me - so that when I ask myself whether I'm living the life that wants to live in me, I'll be able to say yes.