Mindful Chickens #2: Zen and the Art of Burning Your Face
or How to Mindfully Replace a Toilet
I burned my face a couple of weeks ago. It was a bad scene.
I was carrying a massive pot of freshly boiled water up a flight of stairs and I stumbled. Hot water splashed all over my forehead, my nose and around my eyes. I have no memory of what happened next, but what I’ve been able to piece together is that after burning myself I put the pot down, threw my glasses to the ground and sprinted down to my kitchen where I spent the next half an hour with my face under a cold running faucet.
Now you might be wondering what exactly I was doing carrying a pot of boiling water up a flight of stairs, and that would be a totally reasonable question.
Fourteen years ago when my wife and I moved into our house we bought what felt like a very fancy toilet. It certainly was more than we ever thought we’d ever spend for a toilet, but given that this was our “grown up” house we felt like we deserved it. The only problem is that this fancy toilet was not particularly functional. As our children’s bowels got larger, the toilet would be clogged weekly and we’ve found that the only way to get it unclogged was to dump a pot of freshly boiled water directly into the bowl. So when my wife let me know a couple of weeks ago that one of our kids had once again clogged the toilet, carrying a giant pot of boiling water up the stairs felt completely normal. It was something I had done so often that I felt like I could do it without really thinking about it.
That was the problem.
For some reason unclogging toilets has become one of my primary jobs in my house. I’m not sure exactly how this happened, I have no real aptitude for plumbing, but it always fell to me and I always did it, though not always with a smile. In fact the whole process tended to have the effect of turning me into a bit of a grumpy jerk.
So when I grumpily carried that pot of boiling water up our staircase a couple of weeks ago, lost my footing and ended up burning my face, I was, understandably, in incredible pain. And packed with a cold washcloth pressed against my face I headed to the local Emergency Room.
I was told that despite appearances, it was classified as a “superficial” burn. One that hurt like heck, but would eventually heal. They then gave me some pain killers, applied an antibiotic cream to the burn, bandaged me up and sent me on my way.
If you’ve never burned your face off let me tell you, it’s really something. It first turned bright red, then the skin got really really tight, until finally the peeling skin on my face began to fall off. The whole thing took about a week to complete.
My wife was quick to point out that I had accidentally been burning myself for months. Small things at first, burning-my-hand-while-picking-up-a-pan type things. But it was a pattern that was happening over and over again. Those small burns didn’t seem to be doing the job of getting me to pay attention, so maybe this scalding burn across my face would. It had left me no choice but to wake up, slow down and take notice. It forced me to stop moving unconsciously. To not take my health and my sight for granted. And it left me with the opportunity to watch the strange slow motion process of skin slowly flaking off my face.
When I boil it all down I was left with two thoughts:
One, I needed to wake the fuck up.
Two, I really needed to replace my upstairs toilet.
Now full disclosure, I’m not particularly handy. I don’t “replace” things myself that often, and when I do it usually results in frustration, disaster and having to call in a professional to finish the job. But what if this time I added mindfulness to the mix? What if I mindfully replaced my toilet, all by myself?
So that’s what I did. And I realize that this is such a super specific thing, but if you too have a toilet that needs replacing I invite you to take a few breathes and follow along.
How to Mindfully Replace a Toilet
First type “How to replace a toilet” into Youtube and quickly realize that it’s not that hard.
Take a visit to your local Home Depot and buy a toilet that makes the claim to literally being able to flush a bucket of golf balls. You probably can’t really think of any occasion where you might need to flush a bucket of golf balls down your toilet, but you should still buy it because it’s always nice to keep your options open.
Realize that toilets are actually incredibly heavy, and almost throw out your back trying to load it into your car.
Bring the toilet home. Gather all your tools and then go to another room and meditate.
Return to your bathroom and remove the old toilet.
Realize that you’ve just removed your old toilet and that you’re now too deep into this to back out. Begin to freak out a bit. Pause and step out onto your porch and gaze at your magnolia tree and realize that there are the sweetest little buds starting to bloom at the tips of each branch.
Go back inside and install your new toilet.
Hook up the water and cross your fingers that it doesn’t leak.
Test it out by flushing it.
Then all that’s left is to feel incredibly proud of yourself.
I love my new toilet. I sometimes find myself wandering into my bathroom just to gaze at it and take in its beauty.
It’s now been a couple of weeks since the accident, and my face is almost fully healed but waking up, however, is still very much in progress. The shock and then the aftermath of the burn were certainly a great motivator. But like everything in mindfulness, being awake is a practice that I’m constantly being challenged to return to.
P.S. Thank you to EVERYONE who sent in their Mindful Chicken pics! It was so nice to meet all of them! This is the very first one I received, sent only moments after hitting send on the last post. It’s from Eric. He traced the outline of his hand with a permanent marker. I feel like there might be a “wake up” lesson in here somewhere as well.
I hope you’re feeling better!!!