On Taking a Knee

I took a knee today, just to tie my shoe.

Not folding from the waist as I had admired the cheerleaders doing at a football game in 1975 as I sat and sweated in my purple wool band uniform and fuzzy white shako, waiting for our director to lift his baton and lead us in “On Wisconsin” as the flexible cheerleaders bounced in their snuggly-tied shoes, because I knew that bending my knees was better for my back and that I could bend at the waist all day long and still not be popular.

I took a knee today to clean the litter box.

Cat #1 seemed to understand the nasty nature of my chore, and waited patiently as I scooped and threw away her leavings, thoroughly washed my hands, made a cup of tea and sat down to read so she could climb on my lap.  Cat #2 barely noticed me working as she slid by on her way to her morning perch in my bedroom window to study her birds.  I thought of the boys at the long-ago Bar Mitzvah party who threw their napkins at me as they ran by, one of them laughing as he said, “Give it to the maid,” and I wanted to shout back, “I’m with the caterer,” and came home and cried because I didn’t want to be a maid, I was in grad school dammit and now here I am scooping poop into a plastic grocery bag. 

I took a knee today to pick up spilled pistachios.

I actually took two knees and one hand to balance, one hand to scoop up the nuts.  I had poured pistachios into a bowl for Olive, and gave her another bowl for the shells she loved to crack open all by her 3-year-old self, but she insisted on keeping the nearly-full bag on the footstool beside us as we read and cracked and ate pistachios, one for me, three for her.  I wish I had vacuumed before she came over that afternoon and before the bag took a tumble; I watched a few cat hairs go into the bag along with the pistachios.  “Oh no,“ I said, “cat hair!”  Olive kept on scooping and said, “It’s OK, Mimi, a little cat hair never hurt anyone” and I wondered how many times in her little life someone has told her “a little blank never hurt anyone.”

It’s good to take a knee and a breather after an uphill climb on a beautiful fall hike.  Kurt Vonnegut said, “…I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’”  I like to think he would be a big advocate of taking a knee.

It’s good to take a knee in the presence of something holy.

It’s good to take a knee and think on the common bonds of our humanness, the struggles we understand but do not suffer, the peace we all want.

It’s no good to go around with an untied shoe or a litter box full of poop or pistachios all over the floor. 

It’s no good to close my eyes to the messy reality of my house or the world, to hope that my shoelaces will tie themselves and that all people will treat all people with respect and love.

I take a knee and acknowledge the mess around me; I honor the mess that comes from owning a home (and sharing it with pets).  I honor the pistachios we eat, a child who loves me and shoes on my feet.  I acknowledge the mess we find ourselves in as a nation and honor the great hope and possibility that exists in the simple act of listening to our brothers and sisters. 

And when I take a knee, it’s good to have someone right there beside me -- cat or 3-year-old -- acknowledging that my work is important. It means something, this low-level work.
It’s prayer. 

Because a little time on a knee never hurt anyone.

Peace.