Sometimes the inside of my brain looks like this ancient old button jar of mine, now a little art piece.
I read all this stuff about aging gracefully and living life to the fullest. I’ve never been a graceful person and have no intention of starting now. The lessons would take up far too much of my time.
I was writing my Morning Pages this morning. An unbroken habit for more years than I care to count. And this Making Room thing came up, as in what am I not making room for?
Quiet time is one thing. No music, no reading no TV. A couple of hours in the afternoon. Looking at my flowers or my knitting or just doing nothing at all. I need to get back to the run of myself (as my people say) with adjustments to the reality of my life now.
I feel far too much
on edge with lack of sleep nearly every night and ongoing issues with
my gastric system which never seemed to recover from the Norovirus.
I must make room also just to tick off one item from the ever lengthening to do list. I put everything on there as I have the kind of brain that shoves 5 things into my head at the same time and then I lose track of them all when the next bright glittery object hoves into view.
My first test was an email in from an old client of mine (I edited for him. A lot) who wants me to finalize his memoir. And I was going to jump all over it and then stopped myself. With some recent increases in my senior benefits (thank you, Canada) I could still always use the extra money, but do I need it? He’s not a very good writer and I don’t have the spare energy right now to clean him up. So nice email back declining but thanking him for the thought.
Now onward I go, ho-ho. I’ve made other little commitments too which I will write about later.
Have you made room, deliberately, in your life to enhance your days even a little bit?
Orchids, just because.
I hear you about the button jar though some of mine are cracked or still have threads attached. Why I keep them all I know not.
ReplyDeleteI am doing my variable best to ensure that I have moments of beauty in every day. Something I need and can always find even on bad days.
Life plans? Not a happening thing. They never were.
As always, a thought-inducing post.
ReplyDeleteYes, I have deliberately made room. I stopped performing as a storyteller because I wanted time to just be normal, not a "performer", constantly having to promote myself. I still occasionally get asked, and kindly decline. I just don't want the stress and the time commitment again.
I am in a group of four poets who get together twice a year to write, and we put together a chapbook a couple years agonthat required us to do readings. I tried to back out of the project when I realized what I had agreed to, but it was too late. We still have the thankfully occasional reading, and the others are discussing another book, which I will have to tell them I do not wish to do.
So, those things. My husband wants me to cut back on the vegetable garden and I know he is right. It does limit us, as gardens require a lot of time and care. But I love it so! Trying to strike a balance here.
Thanks for the encouragement. Down here it's been hard to be positive of late.
ReplyDeleteRoisinNY - yes, thanks for the encouragement. Above writer “ensuring moments of beauty in every day” - love that!
ReplyDeleteIt's not so much the making room for things thst give me joy (I'm not working out of home anymore, just freelancing now) so have an endless 'weekend' with time to do everything I want (practise piano and guitar, sing, dance), but making a daily HABIT of them is where I fall short. Why do we - no, I - have so much trouble making time for what brings joy? It's so silly.
ReplyDeleteI have several zip lock bags full of buttons, mostly the spare ones cut off shirts, but some would be very old, and it goes without saying, redundant. The buttons are very low on my Swedish Death Cleaning list, as they take up very little space.
ReplyDeleteI guess some writing just needs polishing, but other writing is a mess, and would be very time consuming to correct, with keeping the meaning of what the writer meant. I spent some time working on the words for my post tomorrow, and I am still not quite satisfied, but there are only so many hours in a day when you are busy being retired.
I try to make my days better, more productive and with more time for me, but circumstances always intervene, at the moment, often the two lovely lads who are living here.
I'm one for lists but I try to keep them short. I can thing of five blog post subjects in a few minutes, but then I forget them. It doesn't matter. I am never short of something to say or show.