Sunday, June 27, 1999
Sunday, June 27, 1999 |
Recuperating from surgery is not all it's cracked up to be. I am afraid I have too much time on my hands. Or is that possible? I'm on the third book in the stack I set aside to read during my down time. I have redecorated every room in my house (only in my mind, of course). Several magazines on gardening are starting to fall apart and I keep turning to more reruns than I care to watch on HGTV, The Learning Channel and Discovery. Indeed, this down time I was set to enjoy is being consumed with thoughts of all I want to do when I am up and running at full speed again. I tried for a few days to work on some manuscripts I need to get off to two publishers, but I found that effort too stressful. Writing is fun. It is easy and relaxing. Thinking about what I have written on a given day and how to make it part of a larger whole and then figuring out how to package and promote the larger whole — now that's a whole `nother thing. It is not easy. It is not relaxing. It certainly is not the most desirable activity for one trying to keep one's stress level to minimum. It's like decorating (or redecorating) a room. I have to envision many different layouts or arrangements. Then I need to actually make the visions happen (I'm talking manual labor here) and choose between the most workable of all my efforts. Depending on what room I may be arranging, function may follow form, or form may follow function. There are never any decorating rules set in stone around my house. I might be after nothing more than the best efficiency possible or I might be working toward an inviting warmth that gives little thought to efficiency. Or I might want lots of color as well as warmth and efficiency if it is a space where I will be cooking or eating. And there is always the ever challenging home office space which is forever being improved upon in ways which have yet to scream perfection. No matter what may be perfect today, we can usually improve on it in a month or so. So, whether I am working with a room arrangement or word arrangement, time, especially too much time, can wreak havoc with any order I might like on any given day. It's like in nature — You may have a favorite trail through a nearby woods where you enjoy walking year round. One fine day in spring every detail of your walk is picture perfect, a rarity of course even in the outdoors. Then fall comes and once more perfection marks your path. Same setting, but a different palette. Yet all those walks in between the two perfect days were nice, too. And what made them nice? Most days we do not set out in search of perfection. If we do we can be assured of some degree of failure or frustration. Instead we walk for varying degrees of pleasure. We may claim the health benefits of the excursion. If we are smart, we just enjoy the moment. The moment. It's always the moment, isn't it? But is it the here and now moment or the eternal moment, or are they one and the same. What is it that we are after in this moment? The one in which we hang so precariously between life and death. That's the way it is you know. Always there is only the moment. We are a foolish people to think we have more time than that. The moment well lived is the life well lived and a moment wasted is a life wasted. But how do we know when to do and when to just be? Doing and being may be equally important in this thing called life which may be no more than the sum of all our moments, well lived or wasted. So where in the grand scheme of things does our down time fall? How do we measure the effectiveness of time spent still, resting and recuperating from the unwelcome blows life throws our way? Ah, could it be that these hours and days of which I speak offer the greatest opportunity of all for achievement? Always we are growing and changing, externally or internally or both. And there are eternal ramifications to all we say and do. To all that we are on any given day or moment in time. Who is to say that eternity will not rule the down time the most productive of all?
|
||||||