cosmicomedy
by lavinia plonka

Living Large
Well I can rub and scrub‘til this house shines just like a dime.Feed the baby, grease the car,Powder my nose at the same time.You know I can get all dressed up,Go out swinging with the M-A-N,Jump in bed at five, sleep ‘til 6,And start all over again.‘Cause I’m a woman...W-O-M-A-N.Let me tell ya again.I’m a woman...W-O-M-A-N.
Bette Midler

My phone rings. It’s a conference call for a publication I edit. As I chat with the publisher and her staff, I try not to grunt or to lose the phone in the dirt. I’m sure they wouldn’t understand that today is also a good day for planting garlic…..

When I call my sister Liz, she never asks, “How are you doing?” but “What are you doing?” She knows there is nothing more relaxing for me than talking to her on the phone as I clean the bathroom, bake a pie, or print a manuscript, sometimes all three simultaneously.

I admit it – my favorite Gods are the Hindu gods with multiple arms. Shiva with his weapons, conch shell and empty hand in blessing, Saraswati with her book, rosary and musical instrument—I call them the gods of multi-tasking. Their very existence inspires me. After all, if my time here is limited, why waste it doing only one thing at a time?

I was an early devotee of the Church of multi-tasking. My first memory was while practicing my accordion as a child. My teacher was one who stressed repetition over innovation. Both Mr. Chernofsky and my Dad preferred a well-executed version of My Blue Heaven or Beyond the Sea (irresistible on the accordion) to an original composition by a 10 year old. Therefore, I would quickly learn the song, then let my fingers play it over and over while I voraciously devoured the latest Nancy Drew mysteries which were placed on my music stand in front of Bobby Darin.

I practiced ballet while doing dishes or vacuuming. I memorized my multiplication tables while doing my paper route. (It made a nice rhythm as I pedaled; 1 x 2 = 2, ugh, 2 x 2 = 4, ugh: preparing me for the Conga lines I danced in years later…..)

My husband Ron, who can spend an hour staring at a praying mantis, used to lecture me. “How can you enjoy what you’re doing if you’re doing two things at once?” Then one day, I was walking by the bathroom and heard his voice. Fearing that he had either gone mad or was hiding an alien, I opened the door. I found him in the tub, wearing a headset and….talking on the phone. I use the image of Ron, his scrubbie, his rubber duckie, and the phone whenever he accuses me of being unfocused.

The early 20th century philosopher A.R. Orage described life as a necklace with events like pearls on the strand. He suggested that instead of trying to squeeze more pearls, events, onto the strand, why not just add another strand? After all, the body is perfectly capable of driving a car without the interference of the mind—in fact, if your mind tried to drive, you’d spend a half hour every day trying to figure out how to back out of the driveway. And certainly, most Americans have already discovered that they can talk on the phone and jog, walk, feed the baby, even drive. The challenge is how to do both things well.

Once, a young devotee came to visit a venerable Buddhist monk while the monk was doing a teaching tour in the US. He was shocked to see the monk sitting at a table, drinking coffee, reading the paper and jotting some notes. “But Sensei, you always tell us to do one thing at a time!” The monk smiled and said, “I am doing one thing. I’m having breakfast.”
Many spiritual traditions stress that the way to enlightenment is to unite mind, body and emotions. Herewith are the commandments for multi-tasking as the path to inner peace:

1) Pay attention. Multi tasking is useless if you do a half-assed
job. The Wall Street Journal recently reported on the hazardous increase of eating at the desk, including more vermin in cubicles and ruined keyboards. A new line of office chairs features tray tables like on airline seats to make eating at your desk easier. I say, rise to the challenge! I once managed to consume cold sesame noodles with chopsticks while driving down Rte 80 in NJ on my way to a gig. I can still recall the adrenaline rush I experienced as I passed someone and waved with my chopsticks.
Which brings me to:

2) Don’t multi-task if it’s life threatening. Using a chain saw while trying to remember Liza Minnelli’s choreography in Cabaret is not a good use of your attention.
Leading us to:

3) Choose the right combination for the right time. Dying your hair and checking your email works, as long as you are not also baking chocolate chip cookies or running to answer the phone across a white carpet as the dye drips down your neck.

4) Find a way to make your multiple activities have a single name: Jogging and telephoning = working out. Cooking and talking to Liz = bonding with my sister. Dying your hair, writing in your journal, eating brownies = personal time.

5) Avoid activities that are too similar. Once while washing dishes and making coffee. I ground the coffee and then poured it into the dishpan instead of the coffee maker. Another time while feeding the cat and sautéing mushrooms, I ….well never mind, Ron never knew the difference.

6) This goes for mental activity as well. Once I was trying a new Indian recipe with many complicated ingredients and forgot that I had a radio interview. When the station called, I was sure I could do both—until the DJ asked me to describe the nature of fear and I said 1 teaspoon of cumin…..

7) Keep your mind active. You can compose an article while driving. Or balance your checkbook as you meander through Ingles. (This has the side benefit of keeping me from impulse spending.) Replay conversations that went bad and re-imagine them going your way as you bicycle. Visualize world peace as you dust your shelves.

8) Don’t use multi tasking as a way to escape from yourself. There is a Zen story of two young monks. One wondered if it was OK to smoke while he was praying. His friend shrugged and suggested he ask the abbot. The abbot, upon hearing the young monk’s request was outraged. “How dare you! When you pray, you concentrate on your prayers, nothing else! You need to learn to attend to yourself!” A few days later, the young monk was surprised to see his friend sitting in meditation posture, smoking. “What are you doing? You’re going to get in trouble!” he admonished. “It’s OK, “the other replied, “I asked the abbot.”

“But wait,” said his confused friend, “he told me I couldn’t.”

“What did you ask him?”

“I asked if I could smoke while I prayed.”

“Ah. I asked if I could pray while I smoked.”

Of course, there’s something to be said for just sitting, watching the mind, body and emotions while doing absolutely nothing. There are as many paths to enlightenment as there are pearls on a necklace. Sitting there over 40 years ago playing Beyond the Sea over and over, singing the lyrics to myself may well have awakened the longing that propelled me on my search for meaning in the first place. “Somewhere, beyond the sea, somewhere, waiting for me…..” What would have happened if instead it had been Mack the Knife?

When not doing 3 things at once, Lavinia teaches the Feldenkrais Method®, where you do one thing: movement—as you observe your sensations, emotions and thoughts. Feldenkrais always said, “If you know what you are doing, you can do what you want.”
[ ashevillemovementcenter.com; laviniaplonka.com ]