5 August 2002

Nothing to do...

Imagine having nothing to do.  No chores.  No office work.  No emails.  No children around to make requests.  Nothing.

When I lived in the US I could not have found anything in my brain to compute with how it would feel to  have nothing to do.  There were always projects.  Projects for the house like cleaning the oven or fixing the boards on the outside wall of the cottage.  Projects for school like preparing next month’s presentation or creating the agenda for the fundraising committee meeting.  Projects for the women’s foundation like a new budget, a fundraising plan to replace the office building’s roof.  You get the picture.

Leisure time wasn’t even free of the stress of projects.  I had a pile of books in my office that I wanted to read.  There was a box with a quilt and a dozen other things to sew.  All in my leisure time.

Then there was preparation for holidays, birthdays and visits from friends.

All of these projects kept me on over load much of the time.  But the cold hard truth is that as an American living in the US I seem to be required to have more projects then I can complete.  Those projects keep me shopping and in the fast lane.   If I even thought I might get to the end of the endless list of projects I was almost panicked.  At the drop of a hat I could come up with more things to do.

Life, before we came here seemed like a stream racing down the hill.  If I drew my finger through the water the path was immediately closed behind it.  I used to ask myself, “What is the point of all of this hustle and bustle?”  “When do we slow down and enjoy what has already been accomplished?” and “When do all of the information and demands end?”. 

When I first came to France I was stranded in a hotel room.  The room was in an ancient building on the third floor at the Hotel Bellon in Senlis.  To get to our room I had to climb 3 flights up a winding stairway. 

The place was pleasant enough but incredibly lonely.  Even in that environment I managed to arrange to create projects.  My eight year old and I painted fairy pictures for her room.  We drew up a floor plan of the house we planned to rent and created lists of what we needed in order to furnish each room.  Then we looked up French words for the stuff we planned to buy and roamed the countryside to find the items.

Today when I found I had nothing on my agenda I sighed.  I thought of the week ahead:  the shopping for groceries, the cooking of meals, the visitors, the homework, the emails, the laundry and a million other things that will fill my time.   I suddenly became aware that I was thinking more French (not in French unfortunately).  I didn’t have to race ahead to fill the day.  What did I want to do? 

I hung up the wet laundry, made another pot of coffee and looked at my emails.  Then I started to think about what it feels like to be slowed down.  I didn’t panic.  I didn’t race ahead to think of things to do.  AND I didn’t care if anything needed to get done.

“Oh my god!”, I thought.  “Don’t tell my mom that I am going to sit down and do nothing.”

For no reason at all, except that I wanted to I sat down in the living room and watched the birds come up the outdoor feeder.  Lucy, our tiger cat joined me.  We spent the better part of an hour just hanging out in that chair watching the birds.  

Later I walked around town with my camera and took pictures of the window boxes that are filled to the brim with yellow and purple pansies.  I studied how the sunshine cast shadows on the stonewalls of the ancient buildings.  A cat sat on a car roof and jumped off every time I tried to take his picture.  I must have stood there 15 minutes patiently trying to take his picture.

I’d better be careful.  I could get used to this.