NOW I KNOW – Its a One Stop Solution😊

I am blessed to have a partner who enjoys food – eating as well as preparing. Preparing rich Salad plates and bowls of fruits has been his much loved hobby ever since he learnt to handle a knife. I am the best beneficiary of his this natural hobby. (Now I know as to how he took it so very casually when on our very first meeting I had told him that I can’t cook but would learn.  He, very calmly, had said something like, ” no worries, it would be managed”).😊

Cooking has never been my forte yet I have managed to fill all tummys well, with some help here and there.  Restaurant food too has been a great gap-filler.

Actually, our Indian middle class culture and its mindset does not allow the females to lead a guilt free life if they do not cook well, forget no cook at all. 

My immediate environment needs, my own inner callings as also the spiritual lessons I came across on my way, pursuaded me to learn cooking and from ‘no cooking’ before marriage, I have become a reasonably good cook. I have travelled so far.

Now, with the passage of time, am again on back gear mode. Slowly am cutting myself away from the ‘cooking’ expectations of family. I just can’t handle this responsibility fully now. Lack of stamina is a bigger hurdle now than lack of interest.

Yet, children yearn for more. Partner silently expects. I too feel some self disappointment. I keep trying to  shield my SELF with contemplation, else it would be trapped in the ever wide-open guilt trap of – YOU ARE NOT A GOOD MOTHER AND WIFE.

Today my contemplation provided a healthy and satisfactory answer. It says,

“Anu, there are many types of needs – physical, financial, mental, emotional, spiritual. You did your best at different stages and played well. You worked hard in office, worked well at home front  including kitchen.  Now, with lesser petrol in your body you have simply shifted your gears. You still are taking good care of mental, emotional and spiritual needs of yourself and family. As your partner is an expert at physical and financial fulfilment of human needs, he is giving his best. Kitchen is his second love, after his Clinic. Its just that relatives and your immediate environment gives greater recognition and much voice (and noise) to ONLY  needs that are seen by these eyes. It lacks in giving same recognition to the mental and emotional needs.

So, just chill and don’t expect your machinery (call it our body) to run super duper.”  

“Its okay if you don’t cook regularly.”

                 – :  -:-:-:-:-:-:-:- : –

After completing a not so enjoyable innings of providing self cooked food to self and family,  I engaged a part time cook some time back. But somewhere a constant nagging inside me  was on. Today, at last, I am feeling better. It feels I have satisfactory answers to my inner blaberings. By some contemplation on our daily doses of wise readings /listenings, many answers get evolved. Yes, they do. May be all answers have the same methodology to crop up inside this mysterious mind-box.  Its working wonderfully. Am geting such clear perceptions that suit my system.

The shield of CONTEMPLATION protects  well. As its my saviour, so do I wish everyone else to benefit from it.