Letting go

 

All my life, I’ve been in ahurry, always rushing to get more done, feeling pressured by deadlines, eventhough they were of my own making. I remember once hurrying back to my officeat five o’clock after an event had taken me away for a couple of hours. Thedean of students pointed out that I was going the wrong direction and it wastime to leave work, not arrive, but I replied, “If I could just get a few morethings done ….”

I don’t know where thispressure came from. My memory is that my mom took life as it came. Dad,however, was a workaholic, and I can still see him sitting at the dining table,late at night, with papers spread before him, a cigarette between his fingersuntil he quit at the age of fifty. (I remember thinking then that fifty wassoooo old—now I have kids who are older than Dad was at the time. How did thishappen?)

Even retirement didn’t slow medown. I just exchanged one job for another and went from directing the TCUPress to writing full-time. For several years, I pushed myself to write threemysteries a year. Now I wonder why.

It took pandemic to slow medown. Part of it was, like all of us, I stopped going out to lunch and dinner.After a few months, Christian was amazed. “You’ve been so social! How can youjust stay in the cottage day after day?” I assured him I was content. My familyate supper with me, and we had a small group of trusted friends, alsoquarantining, who came to visit on the patio, even in cold weather—we didn’twant to be in a small, closed room, breathing on each other. But I really wascontent as the whole pace of life slowed.

In the tumultuous years since thepandemic, I’ve wondered how I ever had time to write books. Many days I don’tfinish my opening-the-day routine until noon or later—I read emails (I get alot of them) and I read selected news sources online—the local newspaper, asite called atAdvocacy that I really like, Daily Kos (yes, I know, it’s aliberal rag but there’s some good stuff there), Wake Up to Politics, TexasMonthly’s daily highlights, etc. And of course food columns. Mostly I think ifI don’t write by noon, I won’t get it done, because afternoon is nap time. Inthe last year, I’ve started staying up until almost midnight—my whole schedulehas changed.

I kept thinking if thenational political scene ever quieted down, I wouldn’t “waste” so much timeonline, But something I read recently changed my view of it: retirement andslowing down gave me “permission” to be curious, to dig down any rabbit holethat interests me, including all those political opinion pieces. For instance,for yesterday’s blog, I went exploring to find out about fake scallops and tolearn about the comparison of sardines to tuna. If an article totally unrelatedto anything I’m working on catches my fancy, I feel free to follow it. So now Ican tell you a new trend, popularized on TikTok (no, I don’t follow that) ispairing wine and potato chips. Chardonnay alls for Kettle Salt and Vinegar. OrI can tell you about forest pre-school programs, where youngsters three to fivespend 70% of their time outdoors, learning about nature, both animals andplants. My curiosity has full play.

There’s another aspect to thisrelaxation. If I don’t write it today, there’s always tomorrow. I never everfelt that way before—I’d set a goal of 1500 words for the day and kill myselfto make it. Yesterday I had a scene in my work-in-progress in mind all day, butI just didn’t get to it. Come nine o’clock, and I’m ready to read someoneelse’s mystery. Then I thought, “I’ll just jot down some thoughts.” In the nexthour I wrote 1200 words. If I’d forced myself to write at that hour, I’d haveslogged through some uninspired passages. But because I let it happenspontaneously, I got in some good writing.

Perhaps the first sign of thisnew (to me) relaxation I noticed was that I stopped and stared out the windowmore frequently and for longer periods. At the right time of day, I can glimpsethe children going to school across the street. I have a cool glass teakettlewith neon blue lights indicating it’s heating. These days, I sit and watch it,stare at that blue light, watch the bubbles come up, wait for that magic momentwhen suddenly silently it goes dark when it reaches boiling. Never fails tofascinate me. The old me would have rushed back to the computer to make use ofthat two or three minutes.

None of us will ever in anyway be grateful for the pandemic, but I do think this is one small benefit.And, yes, I am most content.