Having time

I decided that as a part of my effort not to be "busy" all the time, I would, whenever I felt tempted to say I am busy, instead say to myself, "I have enough time." Yesterday was my first "day off" that I have tried to put this in practice. I had some chores I wanted to get done, so normally I would want to hop up and start doing them, but instead, I stayed in bed to read. I got up and made myself a nice breakfast. Since it was much warmer yesterday than previous days, I put Klaus in his little hoodie and took him for a short walk, which I loved and he hated ("Mom, there's half an inch of water on the ground - this is gonna make my paws wet!"). He was too happy to get back home.

So I dropped him back home, and then went on a longer walk: to the grocery store. One of the reasons Michael and I loved this house was that it is walking distance to a lot of good stuff, including our beloved Wegmans. And yet, we have never walked to Wegmans or much of the other nearby stores (oh, once to House of Guitars, and I walked to a nearby deli once), because we are always too rushed or too tired. So now was the time: I grabbed my list and an empty grocery bag, and off I went the three or so blocks to the store.

I must say, walking was so much more glorious than driving. I saw the reflections of trees in puddles. I smelled so many smells, some really unexpected. I saw people. When I walked home, it was noon, and the bells from a nearby church were peeling. I actually had an experience of my neighborhood. None of those encounters would have happened from the car. I saw a lady in the store with a little cart for walking her groceries home, the sort you might see at the Public Market. I considered acquiring one myself, so that I could grocery shop this way even when I have more than one bag worth of stuff to buy.

When I got home, I cooked. This is the first significant cooking that has been done in our kitchen since we bought the house, amazingly enough. We've done a little bit here and there, mostly either breakfast or fast dinners, but this was the first full meal, where I actually used several dishes, and both the stove and the oven and even the toaster oven all at once. Two new recipes! There was this wonderful sense of feeling settled. Here I was, cooking in my kitchen, in my house, preparing a meal for my husband to come home from work to. I made the table look nice, lit candles, the whole bit. It was unusual for us (so far), but at the same time it felt so normal. It was the sort of things normal people do, not what rushed people enduring major life events do. And I felt so accomplished for making what turned out to be a pretty darn good dinner! (Here's what I made, if you're interested. Lentil mushroom "meatballs" on pasta with red sauce.)

All of this was made possible because I decided to start the day not with, "I have so much to do and not enough time," but instead with, "I have enough time. I can enjoy what I'm doing today." A gift indeed!

***

While I walked and cooked, I listened to an "on being" podcast, an interview with Eve Ensler. If you are not familiar with her, she is the author of The Vagina Monologues, and has spent a lifetime gathering women's stories from around the world. While she was in the Congo, hearing those women's stories, she was discovered to have uterine cancer, and for the first time she had to inhabit her own body, and the world, and not just hear about how everyone else had done so. Her story is told in her memoir, which I haven't read but may now, but her reflections on her experience with cancer were quite interesting. I may go back and listen to the podcast again before I comment further, but as a teaser, one thing she talked about was the use of the word "fighting" when talking about cancer treatment, as in, "I'm fighting cancer." She found that language to be unhelpful, because she experienced cancer not as a time to go head-to-head with an enemy, but as an opportunity to become more fully herself. I totally get that, and feel my experience is similar. I may comment more later...

I also listened to interviews with Walter Brueggemann on the prophetic imagination, and one with Phyllis Tickle and Vincent Harding, on racial identity in the emerging church. Both were fascinating, and I encourage you to listen!