Two hands

Two hands

I’ve been breaking things lately. Breaking and dropping things. Breaking and dropping and spilling things. And, for every actual breakage/droppage/spillage, I have had two or three or four close calls.

How I have been making this mess, more specifically, is that I have been setting cups, glasses and other containers too close to the edge of the surface where I am putting them. Actually too much hanging over the edge. And there have been lots more instances, when I go to retrieve an item, where I discover that it, also, is hanging precariously over the edge.

Now, why/how do I do this? Am I a daredevil who likes to beat the odds or trod just as close to a potential accident as possible? Are these surfaces so crapped out that there is no room for these additional objects? (There actually is some truth in this one, but I don’t think it is the primary factor here.)

No, there is another factor that runs through most of these little mishaps (not all of them little, as when, the other day, I dropped my favorite ceramic coffee mug into the porcelain sink). In each case, I was trying to do two things at once. Or actually I stopped paying attention to the first task (placing the container on a surface) before it was completed, in order to move on to another. Literally, in each of the instances that I have recently tracked, I had shifted my head and body orientation in a different direction before the item had settled onto its new resting place. I had not stuck around to actually see the container get successfully placed where I had aimed it. Rather, some part of me had put that task on automatic pilot, trusting that it could finish getting done without any focused attention on my part. And, clearly, in each of these cases, my unconscious strategy proved wrong.

Some mindfulness teachers (Zen Buddhists, etc.) suggest that you use two hands for tasks like these – even if, literally, only one hand is required. This physically prevents you from beginning another task before this one is done. Or any physical task, at any rate – you could still be, in your mind, writing a letter or planning your day. Using two hands, especially as you grow familiar, could still allow for you to do two things at once. But it’s not as easy.

The mindfulness teachers regard this two-hands exercise as a little meditation – a reminder and practice of being fully present to each moment of our lives.

I haven’t even gotten around to trying this little exercise yet, even though I have given myself that assignment after my last few drops. I am quite the creature of habit, and very inclined to be in my head, regardless of what other tasks I may be doing. So I have both not stopped shifting on to the next task before finishing the first, but I have not yet remembered to try the two-hands practice – even having put a little note on my dresser, reminding me to do so.

I think I’ll go over there and post a bigger note. And I’m hoping that writing this piece here will help get my attention. Or maybe I’ll get up from this computer and right now go practice carrying things with two hands. I like that idea. I’m going to go do it for a couple of minutes now, and maybe give myself a little reminder to try it for a couple of minutes every day, until it becomes a new habit.

I do realize there is a risk of the two hands becoming a new habit – and that I will be writing or planning or whatever as I do it. But I’m already thinking of ways to make that practice even stronger – by paying close attention to the feel and heft of the object I’m carrying, looking at it fully, hearing the sound of it landing on the new surface, feeling all the little physical sensations from lifting, moving, turning, etc.

I’m getting excited – this could all be a lot of fun.