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goingonhope
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......Just some Inspiring Readings
Just Sitting Can Be Pure Joy
ANNDEE HOCHMAN
There is a list on my desk, a page ruffled on one edge where I tore it from a spiral notebook I keep in the car. At the top it reads: walnuts, tuna, eggs, butter, baby carrots. Below that: go to bank, file bills, bring clothes to homeless shelter, make dinner date with Mom. On the side, in tinier printing because I was running out of room, I jotted down our menus for the next three nights.
That's just one list. There's a separate agenda for work, with deadline items in boldface. There's a list of house repairs—Patch bedroom ceiling! Get estimate for stonework pointing!—with exclamation points to underscore urgency.
I relish checking items off my lists, tangible marks of accomplishment and industry. And I've always been like this. Whether by nature or nurture, I got the habit from my mother, herself an obsessive list maker who still works full-time, keeps a social calendar that makes me look like a recluse, and routinely accomplishes more in a day than many people do in a week.
Four years ago, when my daughter was born, I raced off to the hospital with lists in hand: relatives to call after the birth, questions to ask the pediatrician. And then I brought my daughter home—five pounds and thirteen ounces of undiluted, 24-hour-a-day need.
Suddenly, I couldn't make lists because my left hand was always busy: cradling a baby, maneuvering her in and out of the bathtub, functioning as an ever-ready pacifier, pinky finger plugged into her rosebud mouth. Even with a hands-free telephone headset and a sling carrier, I was unable to multitask. In my sleep-deprived state, I had to focus 100 percent in order to do anything on the precipitous learning curve that is early parenting: change a diaper, warm a bottle, find just the right syncopated back pat to soothe Sasha's cries. Whole days slipped by, and I floated with them, untethered by agendas.
One bright Sunday I decided to take Sasha to an art museum an hour away. As soon as we arrived, she began to sob with hunger. Flustered, I plopped down on a bench in the first gallery, several rooms away from the drawings I'd come to see. Sasha ate. I sat. And because there was nothing else to do, I looked at the paintings, a collection of large portraits. I noticed the way honey-colored light bathed the face of the young girl in one painting, the stiff-shouldered bravado of a boy's pose in another, the deeply lined cheeks of an old woman in a third. The more I looked, the more I saw. Shadow and expression, a gnarled hand, a sideways glance.
By the time Sasha finished, the museum was almost ready to close. I breezed quickly past the drawings, then packed her into the car. As I drove home, my mind, for once, didn't jump ahead to the next day's plans. Instead, I focused on each pure and present moment: russet leaves waving against a Wedgwood sky, the hint of cider from a roadside stand, the steady rhythm of the car rocking us home.
Just Sitting Can Be Pure Joy
ANNDEE HOCHMAN
There is a list on my desk, a page ruffled on one edge where I tore it from a spiral notebook I keep in the car. At the top it reads: walnuts, tuna, eggs, butter, baby carrots. Below that: go to bank, file bills, bring clothes to homeless shelter, make dinner date with Mom. On the side, in tinier printing because I was running out of room, I jotted down our menus for the next three nights.
That's just one list. There's a separate agenda for work, with deadline items in boldface. There's a list of house repairs—Patch bedroom ceiling! Get estimate for stonework pointing!—with exclamation points to underscore urgency.
I relish checking items off my lists, tangible marks of accomplishment and industry. And I've always been like this. Whether by nature or nurture, I got the habit from my mother, herself an obsessive list maker who still works full-time, keeps a social calendar that makes me look like a recluse, and routinely accomplishes more in a day than many people do in a week.
Four years ago, when my daughter was born, I raced off to the hospital with lists in hand: relatives to call after the birth, questions to ask the pediatrician. And then I brought my daughter home—five pounds and thirteen ounces of undiluted, 24-hour-a-day need.
Suddenly, I couldn't make lists because my left hand was always busy: cradling a baby, maneuvering her in and out of the bathtub, functioning as an ever-ready pacifier, pinky finger plugged into her rosebud mouth. Even with a hands-free telephone headset and a sling carrier, I was unable to multitask. In my sleep-deprived state, I had to focus 100 percent in order to do anything on the precipitous learning curve that is early parenting: change a diaper, warm a bottle, find just the right syncopated back pat to soothe Sasha's cries. Whole days slipped by, and I floated with them, untethered by agendas.
One bright Sunday I decided to take Sasha to an art museum an hour away. As soon as we arrived, she began to sob with hunger. Flustered, I plopped down on a bench in the first gallery, several rooms away from the drawings I'd come to see. Sasha ate. I sat. And because there was nothing else to do, I looked at the paintings, a collection of large portraits. I noticed the way honey-colored light bathed the face of the young girl in one painting, the stiff-shouldered bravado of a boy's pose in another, the deeply lined cheeks of an old woman in a third. The more I looked, the more I saw. Shadow and expression, a gnarled hand, a sideways glance.
By the time Sasha finished, the museum was almost ready to close. I breezed quickly past the drawings, then packed her into the car. As I drove home, my mind, for once, didn't jump ahead to the next day's plans. Instead, I focused on each pure and present moment: russet leaves waving against a Wedgwood sky, the hint of cider from a roadside stand, the steady rhythm of the car rocking us home.
