Blessed
Idling
“The
imagination needs moodling—long, inefficient happy idling, dawdling
and puttering.”
Brenda
Ueland
I
am helping a friend edit a book of short biographical sketches. One
woman wrote, “They will put 'She Puttered' on my tombstone,” and
I thought, “Oh, yes, that would work for me, too.” There is
nothing better to my mind than a good, full day of puttering. All
this multi-tasking we do nowadays is exhausting. My sons, and other
millennials, seem to thrive on it, but I'm too old. My generation
grew up puttering, and we return to it when we need to regroup.
Everyone
has their own particular form of dawdling—some of us like to
scratch in the dirt, prepare the soil for who-knows-what if Spring
ever comes again. My friend, Ellen, likes to iron pillowcases and
table napkins, things your only going to mess up, and knock around in
her boat house. I prefer sweeping things into piles—leaves on the
porch, hair-tumbleweeds shed by the pack of dogs that inhabits my
home, etc. Sweeping is wonderfully mindless business. I like to wash
dishes in warm soapy water, too. And, moving items from one place to
another qualifies as sufficiently empty headed. Some folks I know
hang out in the botanical gardens, even though it's freezing cold, and they've
seen it a million times. They meander around like they've totally
lost their minds.
One
needs entire days of aimless wandering to clear the sensibilities. It
opens up space between those over-taxed neurons, dead tired from all
that Internet searching and Facebook posting. I suggest you plan a
day soon. Put your motor in idle, and just let it sit and purr.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
No comments:
Post a Comment