Spinning the Busy Plate and Other Monday Musings

I may be at least slightly different than the general American culture.

We seem to respect busyness over everything else.

Sometimes we're not just busy in our jobs, we're busy in everything else.  Even in retirement, my parents, for a long time, kept just as busy a schedule as they did when they were working.  They spent so much time on household and yard chores, it made me embarrassed that I was not doing the same.

So we all fill our times as much as we can.  Some do things that to outsiders as if you were creating work just to stay busy.  People build deliberately ornate yards that demand excessive amounts of time.  Remodeling projects that sweep across a house, and then when finished, you start all over again.  Joining group after group so that you have a meeting or activity almost every night.

Although at heart I am a lazy person, my sense of guilt and/or obsession over accomplishing certain things keeps me more occupied than I want to be sometimes.  I love to have time for storytelling.  That includes reading, watching, writing and performing stories.  Sometimes I just like to look outside and think about things.

When I talk about the "tax season submarine" I am very aware there are still people who work much, much harder than I do.  It's just a little more preoccupied and stressful than I care for it to be.  I look forward to the time when, as the Japanese would say, you can "stop and smell the rose".  Yes, the very busy Japanese have a holiday where the whole nation stops for a week and just takes the time to breathe in nature.

And that's what I would love to do.  Work hard and then take a week or so off.  Unfortunately, that won't happen this year.  I have busied myself with the play The Graduate, and I will actually be home less this week than I was during tax season. We have late into the night practices this Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday; then performances this Thursday, Friday and Saturday night; wrapped up with a performance Sunday afternoon.

On Wednesday morning, at around 2 in the morning, Alison and Benjamin leave for New York City.  I will get up and take them to the school where they will get a school bus to the airport.  On Friday night, after the play performance ends, I will need to rush to the airport  to pick them up, long about midnight.

So yes, I am spinning a very busy plate this week.  Keeping up with blog entries will be very iffy,  But at least the busyness is with stuff we like to do.  And that I can put up with a lot easier.

But I do look forward to the time when I can sit on our screened in porch, look around at our yard and neighborhood, have Alison come out, sit beside me and ask, "So, Tom, what's on schedule for today?" and to be able to turn to her and say, "Not a thing.  Except to sit back, relax, and enjoy life."