Normal

We've been packing a lot in this summer. We go a bit crazy when the sun comes back, forgo sleep, and skip anything else that isn't absolutely essential in exchange for birthday celebrations, never-ending river days, and travel. If we aren't packing we are unpacking, if we aren't planning a birthday, we're celebrating a birthday, if we aren't at the river, it's raining.

Our latest trip involved people without kids, a rare occurrence in my current life, and my mind began spinning, remembering. There is a lot of time to do other stuff when you aren't doing kid stuff. Music, writing, cooking, sleeping, feasting, sewing, grand projects of all types. My mind began to spin, teased by the possibilities, the idea of creative-time and work-time lasting all day and through the night, not just squeezed into the hours between kid and adult bedtime.

And like any instance when you crave something, or think you crave something that you don't currently hold, I was bothered, yearny, confused.

And then yesterday happened. A normal day. It was alternately sunny and rainy, relieving all pressure to get another river day in. Nathan was working and I was home with the girls. We didn't make any plans. I posted to the blog over a period of three hours, stopping to settle disputes, pour milk into granola, and be a mom that wasn't glued to the computer. There was simply no hurry, no need to force an activity into a small space. I printed math worksheets and taught Xi to add multiple double digits. We walked downtown to visit Papa, stopping literally every ten feet. No problem. We threw the ball for Henry into the grey river. Xi floated fairy boats, Echo stripped naked. We got caught in a downpour which thrilled the girls as the drops wound perfectly into their complex pretend. We made dinner.

I didn't write a novel, but I did write. I didn't pack for a trip but I didn't unpack either. We didn't fill the day to the brim with fleeting summer delights, but  it was filled nonetheless. With simplicity. With ease. I lived my life, without  craning my neck to see how others were living, without yearning for a scenario that doesn't currently exist, and without exhausting myself in the pursuit of what isn't already happening.

Comments

[Myers]

Wow -- that last sentence packs quite a punch. You describe well that oh-so-elusive state of being contented. And that is a rich state indeed, whether it feels that way or not -- how often, it seems, it actually DOESN'T feel that way for me! It's startlingly easy to be seduced by the siren song of what could be, what others are doing (that's better, more enriching, more interesting, more more MORE), what you want but don't have. Thanks for the reminder to live life with ease and simplicity ...