Starting the month on a Sunday feels like an opportunity to once again try to find a groove, or build momentum, or, or, or… I’ve had the type of weekend I think I’ve been longing for. I’ve exercised, walked, sat at a coffee shop, went to see a band, bought fresh, local produce at a farmers market, had a few simple and delicious meals, read a bit, and wrote a few things (poems and lines for poems). It was sun-kissed and full of reflection.
Oddly, the one thing I was planning to do on Saturday, go to a blues festival, was the one thing that was giving me the most anxiety, and when it got canceled, freed me up for everything else. Anxiety might not be the right word, but I was mentally struggling with the logistics. Gates opened at 11, music started at noon, and lasted until 11 at night. I wouldn’t have been able to go for the whole day (dog), and it was an hour-and-a-half drive from here. No matter how long I stayed, I was feeling bad about the dog before even going. I had also wanted to squeeze in some exercise before the show and maybe some writing and a dog walk. I woke up too late for all of that.
Yesterday, after breakfast, a walk (pooch and me), and a little bit of coffee and reading on the deck, I went online to buy a ticket to the festival. It said the show was postponed…. I spent the next half hour trying to confirm that the information was accurate. Several places, including the event venue, still had it listed as happening – but every time I clicked through to the ticket – postponed. I thought, well, maybe they just mean there are no more tickets. Or maybe this was from an earlier postponement – that’s happened to me before. It wasn’t until I came across a band Facebook page with a recent post saying it was postponed because of rising COVID numbers that I gave up and looked for alternate plans.
I was kinda building my weekend around this event. I even went out and bought a new lawn chair. I scrolled around the interwebs looking for other things to do. I thought about hiking, but it was already late in the morning. It wasn’t until I gave up on doing something that the surprising pleasantness of doing nothing took hold – intentional loafing. I “discovered” a nearby farmers’ market where I got fresh peaches, corn, tomatoes, and a type of sourdough called mountain bread. That, in turn, gave me a weekend of simple lunches (bread and oil, Manchego cheese, and tomatoes), a homemade burger dinner with fresh corn and tomato, and a tonight’s simple and clean dinner of spicy grilled shrimp and peaches over rice. Doing nothing also meant exercising whenever I wanted, taking two long walks (5-6 miles), visiting a used books store (got a new book of poetry, Minding the Sun), and sitting in the sunshine outside of a coffee shop both days.
It wasn’t until I gave myself permission and the freedom of time that I recognized the difference between intentionally creating time and space and squeezing things in. On most nights, I come home too tired to exercise or write. On most mornings, I’m tired and too preoccupied with work and “my day” to exercise or write. This leads to a cycle of guilt over not getting to some of the things that are important to me. One of the few things that takes no energy and “fills in the gaps” is mindlessly wasting my time on social media – which perpetuates the cycle of guilt. But once I stopped telling myself I should be…. reading, writing, exercising, painting, learning a language, learning harmonica (the dog’s not a fan), or getting some stuff done around the house… once I gave myself permission to not fit it all in, I not only found a sense of liberation and creativity, but I enjoyed it more. It’s as if the hours expanded simply because I wasn’t paying attention to them, simply because I was too busy minding the sun.