“Can you leave a half-day without plans, just decide what to do when you wake up and be ok with whatever that is?”
Amanda and I were sitting in her Y’Om, an octagonal yurt-like structure on a wood deck that connected to her house. Tall trees shaded the property. A steep slope, soft with grass, led straight up into forest.
I didn’t want to head right back into the busy-ness. The calendar crowded with to-dos and Zooms and 15-minute informational calls and too-many classes. I wanted to keep the peace of waking when I am done sleeping, swirling the milk into my tea, watching the fog burn off and the water appear, walking the beach when I felt like I needed salt air and the sound of waves crashing.
I left home seeking freedom and wanted to bring it back with me. Freedom from myself, it turns out.
“Can you leave a half-day unplanned?”
Sure, I could do that.
Tuesday mornings, in fact. Blocked off on the calendar.
I wake and it’s quiet, kiss my husband goodbye as he leaves for work. Maybe I read. Maybe I walk miles in the early light and cool air. Maybe I feel like swimming so I go to the pool. Maybe I nestle deeper under the blankets and doze. Maybe I write. Maybe maybe maybe. So many options. Just me.
It was easier than I thought it’d be. The rest of the stuff fits in where I put it. Inanimate, exerting no control over me as I had once believed, only me controlling the narrative, me whining to me about how busy the schedule is and how I don’t want to be so busy. Um, excuse me, self, just change things. Just do it easily and quickly, rip off the bandage, you can make your schedule what you want it to be.
Really, you can.
This need to be busy, where does it come from?
According to this article, “Individuals who are busy by choice may feel needed, in demand, and important, thus elevating their feelings of self-worth.” It could also be a coping mechanism, a distraction from hard feelings or a trauma response, according to a variety of other articles including this one.
Hmmm…which one am I?
Could it be an addiction? Like, I get so busy and then I’m used to that pace, so I keep it up, hamster-on-a-wheel, unaware of how hard it is to breathe?
Saturdays I take entirely off. Remnants from my time as an Orthodox Jew, perhaps, and also it’s just a really good day to stop working and breathe.
Tuesday mornings and all day Saturday. It’s a start.
Would You Like a Writing Prompt?
Years ago, there was a flash flood in my city, the water thigh-high and cars stuck in it. A woman turned onto my street unaware of the deep water and her car stalled out. There were two young children in the backseat, in carseats, and the woman was freaking out. My husband and I waded over to her, tried to pry open the doors against the push of the water, but they wouldn’t move. She opened the windows and shimmied up and out and then we reached in and freed the children and carried them to dry ground.
The next day, and for days after, nearly every resident in my neighborhood dragged damaged goods from their basements out to the curb. Mountainous piles of ruined crap, all forgotten in boxes and envelopes and packets and bags and shoved into dark corners of the deepest part of the house.
It was a purging. Everything had to go. But was it stuff that would be missed? Was it stuff that anyone remembered they had?
What else do we keep in the deep recesses of memory? Items we can’t quite let go of but don’t really need anymore? When we clutter our lives and our minds with unnecessary stuff, does it slow us down? Block the view? Make it hard to think clearly?
Write about one item that you couldn’t let go of but should. Write about the darkest room in the house. Write about what would happen if you let it all go. (This can be nonfiction or it can be about a character in the book you’re writing.)
Upcoming Events for Paid Subscribers
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Thank you to everyone for reading! I am so grateful for your attention. Let me know how the writing goes this week and if you’re enjoying the Rebel Author Newsletter, please share it with friends!
Love Always,
Lynne