I'm struggling to maintain the running, Bridge with my dad, and daily blogging I established during COVID now that school is in full swing.
Many people hated the shriveling of their lives as the pandemic prevented them from participating in social activities and life events.
I missed those too. Especially snuggling Wolf.
But for the most part, my messy life needed some major Marie Kondo de-cluttering magic. Isolating gave me that. I was granted permission to say no: No church. No parades. No socializing. No meetings. No obligations.
Just say no.
While I thought I enjoyed (or at least didn't mind) my pre-COVID activities, I felt a freeing release when my only jobs were to stay home, feed my parents, get some exercise.
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Now that I'm back in school, I'm alive again. I'm engaged and thinking and problem-solving and interacting from 8 a.m. to 3:13 p.m. My evenings and mornings are packed with grading, planning, and prep for the next day.
After five months of idly chatting through coffee with my parents, yawning into a morning run on the trail, stretching in the sun to read the news, maybe throwing in a load of washing...I have to say my life is now running at a much higher RPM.
In many ways this is good: I feel energized and purposeful.
But it squeezes out the slow-life COVID activities that had grown dear to me.
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I tell my students that poetry is almost always on some level about life's biggest themes: love and death.
Tonight I'm feeling a third major life theme (which might, in fact, be a combination of love + death): How should we spend our finite time?
Mary Oliver asks this question in her infinitely re-readable poem "The Summer Day":
"What is is you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"
I'm feeling the squeeze.
I can't do it all.
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Enough.
Be well.
Write.
Allison
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| Wolf is at a three-day dog-training workshop with his parents. I love everything about this picture. |
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