Hands full of Time

Over the last few days, successive nor'easters and a bug kept me home. I suddenly had ample amounts of something that often feels scarce-- time. It freaked me out a little bit. Having it, in some weird way, almost felt like a failure. If I worked harder or was more successful, I wouldn't have this thing we all crave.

I know that thought is the devil so I tried to settle into it. I visited my list of things to get to "when I had time." Books I'd meant to read. Preparation I could do for upcoming workshops. Using therapy balls to roll out my feet and hips.

I did that stuff and I also took great care of my health. I ate so much raw fruits and vegetables. To me, a pear is a commitment! You have to sit down and see that thing through! I lived in the ways I always intend to-- some ginger tea first thing, a couple of yoga stretches, a tangerine and banana, reading a chapter. My days meandered and yet looking back, I got to a fair amount.

My body and its health were tended to with the care I give my work.

That's crazy.

I'm OK listing the projects and deadlines I need to get to in my day planner because I get compensated and I get attention for their completion. I like those things. Both are connected to how I view my worth. And, practically speaking, they're necessary. I need income to stay sheltered and fed.

I'm pretty attentive to my health. I'm a yoga teacher for chrissakes. And I absolutely do have daily rituals of movement, diet, and rest to keep my health balanced. However, that attention is nowhere near as great as the attention I feel my work deserves. Work feels important and justified. I'm allowed to be busy with it. Doing so, I get to join the masses of overwhelmed. We get to commiserate together. We get to feel important and valuable together. I'm totally a part of it.

I've recognized this value-as-doing and tried to at least pause it and create some counter-weights. I think by and large, I've found some means that help me like having one day a week offline to stave off the constant stimulus of the internet.

But how weird. We collectively decide our work is justified. Our bodies, our lives, indulgent.

And that is completely possible. We could all succumb to endless rituals of health that amount to navel gazing and stop creating together. Again, balance.

These past few days I had abundant time. I used it to brew ginger teas, juice vegetables, eat raw foods, and rest, and all the things that restored my health fully. I listened to some of my favorite Alt-Country-- the stuff I tend to listen to on my favorite mountain sojourns. I saw a pattern there too-- I listen to that stuff when there's open road and open sky. When everything opens up.

My time and my life had opened up. I had that cabin in the mountains sense in my own suburban home. That felt great and again, highly unusual. In the rural south I pace myself to my environment and it feels delicious-- a long sip of iced tea. Here, outside of Philadelphia, I felt other than the environment and it gave me that same nervousness. If I was successful and on-the-path, I should feel much more rushed and harried. Something must be wrong.

I tried to slow it again. Part of why Kevin and I are growing a food forest in our suburban backyard is to remind ourselves that you can live intentionally wherever you are. I want to leave as many spaces as wild as possible so I'm staying with the humans in population density. But I can still carve out my little bit of country.

The country, rural life that feeds my creativity, came in slowly as my schedule opened up. They live together, that ambling mind and slowly tended stew. The projects I took on like food prepping lots of roasted vegetables and a long, hot soak with epsom salts and essential oils took much more time than I usually have in the window here or there between a class or before a meeting with Officiating clients. I shoveled the walk and talked to my neighbor. I didn't have anywhere else to be. I got groceries before the storm and let someone else in line ahead of me. I wasn't in a hurry.

It's a way of being I can rarely connect to here. I don't know what it would look like to maintain because it's against the grain and against the current. But I know it feels well-rested, settled, well-fed, quietly moved, and gentle. There's a current and a rumbling, there's a responsiveness if needed. But there's no rush.

I feel my history in these moments. This is how my grandmothers lived. They tended their homes, prepared things, and had time to read novels in the afternoon. I've thought recently about how all of my women ancestors were artists-- my paternal grandmother a vocalist and pianist, my maternal grandmother wrote, crocheted, refinished and restored antiques, and painted detailed china. They created so much with the time in their hands.