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June 18, 2008
A Moment's Reflection
I read part of a book last summer called Stumbling Upon Happiness. I don't remember finishing it, but I may have. (That's been a limited reading time trick of mine since undergrad. Read until you figure out the author's bias, get the gist of what s/he's getting at and then move on to the next thing.)
The core of the author's argument, as I recall it, is that it doesn't matter how hard we work to make things safe, it doesn't matter how thoroughly we research our options, in the end, we not only have no guarantees of favorable results for anything, but the happiness we find is often not in the place we expected it to show up, and we need to grab those moments when they happen.
This is why I war with myself all summer long. Because I feel like I ought to be doing things. What use am I if I'm just taking up space? It's no good telling myself I narrowly avoided either a physical or mental collapse this spring, given the way I was pushing myself, and that I desperately need a rest. I still feel useless if I'm not producing something, be it a paycheck (not happening right now, it's summer), a remodeled bathroom, a clean house, garden produce*, art, something physical that I can use to demonstrate my value.
But if I don't have these moments of breathing space, I miss the real beauty, which happens in flashes and isn't available for me if I'm rushing from thing to thing. I miss things like this:
Dogwood Reflection
That was on our kitchen wall this morning. It's the shadow of our red twig dogwood. Only, based on the angle, it's not possible. The sun is blocked by the house across the street when it would be able to produce that shadow. (And I don't get up early enough to catch something like that.)
As near as I can tell, it's a shadow created by sunlight reflected off the windshield of a car parked in the driveway of the house across the street. Fleeting, beautiful, and only available by chance because the car was parked there at just the right time at just the right angle and the dogwood is finally big enough--but not too big--for the branches to cast shadows there and I was in the kitchen to notice it. And rather than just brush it off or think, "That's cool," and get on with my life, I opted to take a photograph of it. I paused, and let it hit me more deeply.
This is the kind of thing I'm talking about. I mean, what if the richness of our lives is based not on the things we produce, not on the goals we achieve, but on our stopping to recognize the moments of fleeting beauty? What if that's the thing that tips the scales** between a standard life and a life well-lived? Am I simply wasting time, or am I making myself available to appreciate the really important bits?
I'm not sure I'll ever have an answer to this question. I do hope I can learn to slow down. I'm not sure I proved anything by pushing myself nigh unto death this spring except that that is not how I want to live. But is there value in these moments? Is there worth in being the only person who got to watch a hummingbird play in the spray from the backyard sprinklers one morning last summer? Do those individual experiences add anything of value to the world? Or do I need to stop worrying about whether the entire planet directly benefits from everything I do and maybe assume the accumulation of these moments in a single life does prove to be important in the long run?
Things were so much easier when I was six and didn't worry about everybody else so much.
*Which is coming, by the way, I have three happy tomato plants, a vigorous eggplant, three pots of mint, one of nasturtiums, three romaine plants, some Swiss chard and a big dish of French greens. Oh. And four pumpkins and some radishes. No sign of the carrots I planted with them.
**It's so funny that I'm a Virgo with a Scorpio rising sign. Because those two signs flank Libra--the scales--and it seems I'm doomed to spend my entire life seeking balance, an accord, between my highly practical earth sign and the fiery creativity of my rising sign.
Posted by sally at June 18, 2008 09:51 AM
Comments
Can I point out that Sallyacious has produced both an amazingly beautiful photograph and a blog from this worrisome moment of possibly wasted time?
I also say, so what if you just take up space some of the time as long as you don't do it all of the time!
Sally, you are so not the kind of person to sit on your couch so long you get bedsores (my roommate may actually be that sort of person). In fact, you are so far removed from that that your idea of a waste of day is probably her idea of an exciting weekend. I think if you just let it be a little bit (a la Nike)--not all the time mind you, like an afternoon or morning a week--you might be rested and recharged enough to be even more amazing than your usual self the other times.
Wow that complicated. Ummm, see you in a few weeks. I will be 29 when you next see me. Weird huh. I was like 16 when we met right?
Posted by: HeatherK at June 18, 2008 02:53 PM
Heather,
You are a sweetie. I hadn't meant to sound whiny. I'm just trying to figure all this stuff out and to be honest. This, you see is my core issue, the one I get to deal with over and over and over again in my life: *that I am not enough.*
Who knows where it comes from, this sense that I always need to be better, to try harder, to do more. The only person I'm competing against is myself. I'm just amazed at the many, many ways it shows up in my life.
Posted by: Sallyacious ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.sallyacious.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at June 19, 2008 11:22 AM
I just found it such a quintessentially Sally moment. I know how hard you can drive yourself when you feel like you need/should/ought to be doing more, but there you are worrying about the "worth" of your moment and showing us that STUNNING photo. It is really beautiful.
I didn't think it was whiny. I just thought you weren't giving yourself enough credit for how amazing you are.
Posted by: HeatherK at June 19, 2008 02:11 PM
I am just recovering from the three days of exhausion that accompanies the end of the school year. I now have to force myself to rest and relax and not be such a "doer" in the summer. It took lots of therapy sessions for me to get there!!
Posted by: inlandempiregirl at June 20, 2008 02:19 PM
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