day planning
January 14, 2016 § 9 Comments
It was just after I drew January’s calendar of days that I came across a brightly colored, inexpensive day planner. The cheerful hue drew me from my task. I hesitated, weighing the frivolousness of my find, but there was just enough joy in the discovery that I indulged my impulsivity and invested in whimsy.
Appreciative of the convenience of technology but nostalgic in my love of paper, I decided I would use the large blocks of space to map my thoughts on multiple classes, preserve fleeting inspiration from borrowed quotes, chart the work of unexceptional errands and note efforts toward personal care.
Curiosities and quotes, doodles and debts of time now sketched in a place near to where I rest. Gone are the torn fragments of hurried scribbles and misplaced thoughts in want of paper. It is a diary of days and a place of self, an active commitment to an investment of time.
“Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today!” ―Mark Twain
to my children
June 14, 2015 § 2 Comments
Last Wednesday we piled into the car for a short drive up the street. The weather lately has been uncooperative, wet and cool then hot and humid. I was thinking mostly of the clouds as we drove the short distance, my eyes on the blue patches of sky second guessing the decision to drive; we might have walked after all, but then I was also already planning what we might need to do later.
It was in arriving that I lost track of all the mundane thoughts that had only moments before held my attention. Time stood still as years chased old memories around a tiny bundle of hope swathed in love. I can’t recall the last time I held such a new life or when the memory of your own infancy felt so tangible against the impossibility of your adolescence.
Sometimes magic sneaks up on us in plain sight.
Memories tumbled unbidden of days lost to old photographs and fractured reminiscing. It seemed a trick of sentiment that I could recall days long past with the clarity of yesterday even as you leaned curiously over the tiny sleeping form who fascinated us with content irreverence for our fussing. My children bent tenderly in respectful fascination over another’s miracle.
How quickly the years have slipped from the moment beneath my feet. Time is a funny measure of life, memories changing the weight of minutes into something we cannot so easily define.
Love, Mom
time keeper
March 10, 2013 § Leave a comment
This day comes predictably unexpected each year. The familiarity of winding time into the future makes me wistful for a mysterious unknown; in between quiet predictable patterns of my morning routine I long for the paused possibility that never was and yet always is. I have lost nothing and still the missing minutes stretch infinitely in my mind distracting me with whispers of What if?
investing time
September 22, 2012 § 4 Comments
This week I structured my days more intentionally, dividing my hours with a conscious appreciation for relationships. By week’s end I feel a gratifying sense of connection among those who are most important to me.
I began with a promise and commitment to myself. For one hour each day I gifted myself time to exercise. The practice of running has become an act of meditation for me; in motion I am more peaceful, my thoughts more cohesive. This small investment in myself became the foundation for my week, centering myself before sharing pieces of my day with others. A sense of serenity inspired greater energy and attention to areas where I could improve upon other relationships.
The first realization came late one night while my children procrastinated over their bedtime routines. It occurred to me that my children did not fully appreciate the value of these routines for their father and I as a couple. This week I placed our needs into expectations. I outlined for both children the importance of a healthy marriage to happy parents, identifying the quiet couple time in the evenings as essential rather than optional. I asked our children to demonstrate respect by honoring our evening routines that their father and I may end our days connected with conversation, rest, and sharing.
As a measure of thanks for this time alone in the evening, I recommitted myself to connecting with each child during simple moments like homework, mealtime, and extracurricular activities; each opportunities that lend themselves to easy, unforced conversations. These touch points of our days are necessary indulgences I dare not compromise.
Perhaps the greatest change to my week involved an increased effort to share my days with friends. More than speaking I listened, laughed, and settled into hugs rather than settling for e-mail messages and texts. My absence from home left some household tasks undone, but my children and husband embraced new opportunities to connect as they explored pockets of time together without me. Adjusting my days to encompass exercises in friendship highlighted this area of my life as assumed and overlooked. Loving friends without demonstrating appreciation by sharing time leaves these precious relationships unbalanced and undervalued.
The world did not challenge these small adjustments to my daily agenda. Greeting each day more aware of each relationship my days were richer for the investment of time.
day by day
February 21, 2012 § 1 Comment
Calendar days pass in tidy, equal squares of time. Mundane moments of routine activities and spontaneous pockets of play create a rhythm of predictable tides. Some days I feel as though I am racing forward moving quickly between errands, household tasks, and miscellaneous commitments. Other days time seems to slumber and the minutes pass in aching stillness as if Father Time’s hands are mischievously holding each second greedily.
Gray skies and cold rain drops have mired today in a lengthy sigh and I catch myself daydreaming of days ahead; sunshine and the anticipation of adventure. Like a child I am counting calendar squares between this day and a days of play. In the weeks ahead my daughter will share a camping adventure with her father; my husband and I will celebrate another wedding anniversary with a quiet night to ourselves; our family will travel for a long anticipated visit to Grandma and Grandpa’s home.
Lost to anticipation my daughter’s dry cough stirred me from daydreams and I found my way to the dark, quiet room where she is resting today. Her lopsided smile beneath watery, sleepy eyes make her seem smaller and younger than her years. Her typically headstrong, playful antics are buried beneath tired limbs and propped up with piles of pillows. It is a quiet day, one whose minutes pass with the forced progress of one walking against a current.
Rather than busy myself with tasks, I am settling into the space beside my daughter. Absorbing a borrowed day from the routine of school and setting aside thoughts of tomorrow. Let the hours pass slowly today, my little girl grows all too quickly.
misplaced minutes
January 11, 2012 § 2 Comments
Despite good intentions I find myself frequently squandering time on bad habits. The air around me charged with inspiration and heightened consciousness born of resolutions, I am revisiting an old nemesis: distraction.
Last year I passed a sign promoting a time management class. My first thought was, I wonder if I have time for that? Hesitation is a distraction that keeps me from moving forward, uncertainty replacing action. This year I will add momentum to intent.
Insecurity also keeps me safely on the sidelines. Destructive messages like I’ll look silly. I’ll make a mistake. I’ll fail. keep me mired in presumed inability. When the moment passes inevitably my greatest regret is that I lost an opportunity to try. I will not be distracted by negativity, I will be open to possibility. After all, What if I succeeded?
Perspective can be paralyzing when I stand in the wrong place. Often my mountain is only a molehill too close to my lens. A couple of steps in a new direction and the path is much easier to find. How will I get through this? becomes Where should I begin? Allowing a problem to distract me from my goals places a greater value on the problem. My dreams are bigger than my doubts.
I want to gather minutes lost to distraction and invest it in possibility despite uncertainty, try something new without weighing success against failure, and exercise intent that moves mountains simply by shifting perspective. This is my early morning message to myself, scribbled and shared for accountability.
how many sleeps
December 13, 2011 § Leave a comment
My daughter measures time in dreams. As we near winter break and Christmas festivities the days seem to pass at an excruciatingly slow pace; refrains of How many sleeps? pepper the waking hours with unbridled eagerness. Anticipation taunts our patience with promises of lazy days unbound by the restrictions of school day routines as we slip into winter coats and begrudgingly go through the motions of our days.
Eyes cast to the calendar I am longing for leisurely mornings of cocoa and coffee, lounging languidly in pajamas. Spontaneous baking and late night movies. Gathering friends near and embarking on journeys unplanned in search of happy distractions. I am eager for the sound of my children’s laughter in the middle of the day and extra hours to enjoy their thoughts. I am ready for the gift of time.
measure of time
September 16, 2011 § Leave a comment
Big brown eyes brimming with wonder, my son is fascinated by the immeasurable quality of time. His first insight came over a year ago when he uttered casually: I wish there were a way to recycle wasted time. I immediately captured his words on paper and frequently re-read his sentiment marveling at the purity of his wish.
This summer, as the school year approached, he revisited the subject of time feeling overwhelmed by the dwindling days of summer vacation. Mournful and mindful of each day leading up to the first day of school, he was reflective and sensitive. He would passionately proclaim the imbalance of time’s measurement, convinced that time passes too quickly functioning outside the boundaries marked by the simple hands of man-made clocks.
Last night, he came to me long gangly legs awkwardly tumbling down the stairs, a face marked by discovery and a voice hushed with the awe of awareness and said: Mom, I figured out the true meaning of happiness in life. You can wish all you want for your birthday and Christmas, but you shouldn’t. Time will slip away through your fingers, but you won’t realize it. The true meaning of happiness is to enjoy each and every day.
Again, I felt the need to capture a singular moment in time, my fingers rushing desperately across my keyboard attempting to catch his words in proper sequence. This child that came to me as an unexpected gift, a happy surprise, has marked the passing of years with an awareness and wisdom that inspires me to embrace each moment.
misplaced time
March 15, 2011 § Leave a comment
I keep looking for my lost hour with the frustrated determination of one hovered over a square of carpeting, hands buried in loose threads of pile, feeling blindly for a missing earring. Something as simple as advancing my clock has left me feeling momentarily stranded in time; tired and disoriented. In another couple of days it will be as if nothing happened. Today I am groggily stumbling through my old routine with the grouchy belligerence of someone demanding a refund for a free meal. The irony rests patiently in the future. Come Fall I will step on the lost earring and howl in pain over the extra time, too tired to collect the free hour.
scribblechic 