Shelling peanuts is one of the most unsung yet effective methods for stress reduction. First, purchase a large bag of peanuts, in the shell. Next, seat your hinny at the kitchen table. Pour a large mound of peanuts from the bag onto the surface in front of you. (You may spread them out if you wish.) Then, (and this is important), if you are wearing sleeves, roll them up. Not down. Finally, pick a peanut. Any peanut. It doesn't matter. Then, gripping the puffy little figure eight between your thumb and forefingers, transfer your stress to the peanut via a hard SQUEEZE. Listen for the therapeutic POP of the shell as it crumbles and reveals a small, smooth, shiny... nut.
REPEAT.
Tonight, amidst suspended self-judgement of a lacking social life and my preference for an early bedtime, I sat down at my kitchen table, with a bag of peanuts, and then listening to the call to prayer. It was a meditative experience. And not entirely owing to the peanuts. The call to prayer has changed in the last weeks; the Arabic words echo through the hills now as late as 9:30 in the evening. And the vocations seems to be becoming more melodic, and even at times hypnotic. Tonight, with the windows open, the cool night air swept trhough the room, carrying the sounds, over my head and over the peanuts. For a moment it seemed as if all the voices of all the different mujdin, were embodied in the skin of one, and this voice, was sitting across from me at the kitchen table, calmly, silently, watching me shelling peanuts.
REPEAT.
Tonight, amidst suspended self-judgement of a lacking social life and my preference for an early bedtime, I sat down at my kitchen table, with a bag of peanuts, and then listening to the call to prayer. It was a meditative experience. And not entirely owing to the peanuts. The call to prayer has changed in the last weeks; the Arabic words echo through the hills now as late as 9:30 in the evening. And the vocations seems to be becoming more melodic, and even at times hypnotic. Tonight, with the windows open, the cool night air swept trhough the room, carrying the sounds, over my head and over the peanuts. For a moment it seemed as if all the voices of all the different mujdin, were embodied in the skin of one, and this voice, was sitting across from me at the kitchen table, calmly, silently, watching me shelling peanuts.