Knots

Yesterday, I realized I have been tying my shoes wrong my whole life. For some reason the almost twenty years of shoes coming untied, of having to be retied again and again, of double knotting after hours of frustration hadn’t led me to re-examine my technique. I had simply blamed the shoes, the laces, the uneven terrain. I had never stopped to look at my knot. I had never realized that there could be a fundamental error in my action. I couldn’t criticize my own faulty ‘granny’ bowknot because I had no idea it could be the problem. Are not all bowknots created equal? Now I know otherwise, and from now on will tie a ‘square’ bowknot. From now on my knot will hold—if not perfectly then at least better.

I wish that more of the worries and cares of my life could have such simple revelatory solutions. What a joy it would be to awake to the knowledge that to get on with people who disagree with me all I had to do was cross their opinions over mine rather than under. To see that to find the sacred in the everyday all that was needed was a slightly more careful forming of a loop of time for myself in the day for prayer and meditation. That to break myself out of indolence all that was needed was a second half hitch of urgency.

Stooping to my laces everyday, I now think: “This simple thing has needed to be corrected all your life. What other actions need to be remedied?”