A break...

I should take Facebook breaks more often. I promised myself I wouldn’t read it at all this week, and I didn’t. I actually do think that made a measurable difference in my general attitude. Obviously I have plenty of fun on Facebook; I post quite a bit myself, and it seems to be the way to keep in touch with anyone I don’t actually happen to see every day. (E-mail? Phone calls? Letters? What are those?) But a little over a week ago I found myself muttering out loud at the computer screen things like, “Have you ever met a soapbox you didn’t love?” and “You know what, everyone has a hard job.” (I do think there’s some truth to the idea that the things that bother you are the things you tend to do or find in yourself. I know perfectly well that I have my own well-worn soapboxes, and I’m just as capable of dramatic martyrdom as the next person -- but I also know that posting a meme with a smug little caption is unlikely to do anything but get “likes” from people who already agree with me, and I don’t think I do myself any favors if I try to win the “I’m busier than everyone else” competition. No one has ever offered to make me an award, which makes me a little bitter.)

At this point in the year, when I’m really just enjoying my job and my life, when my sophomores are turning into really cool people and I can see the end of the year from here, I just can’t deal with people’s opinions about the State of Education. I just can’t. I don’t want to talk about Common Core with someone who read one article about it somewhere and suddenly has very strange ideas about what goes on in my classroom. I don’t have the mental space for a ton of righteous indignation when I’m busy getting ready for my students’ poetry performances. And sometimes I reach a point where I just cannot read another article about parenting or car seats or what kind of food we should be feeding our kids. I have opinions about all of these things, and they are objectively important, I suppose, but sometimes I really just want to tell everyone that instead of cooking a beautiful organic dinner after a couple of hours of crafting or taking my kids on a field trip to a local museum or farm or whatever, I made them go play in the (safely fenced!) backyard while I stayed inside, poured myself a glass of wine, and made them dinner out of a box. And I’m not sorry.

What I’m saying is that when I find myself muttering out loud at a computer screen and actually walking into my “real” life feeling annoyed or even angry, or when I find myself disliking people online when I quite like them face-to-face, it’s probably time for a little breathing space. And breathe I did. It has been a wonderful, restorative week -- a break in every sense of the word. We stayed home this year, but I decided that each day we would do something special. We rode the Tacoma Link, ate cupcakes, visited used bookstores, wandered through Pike Place Market, rode on the Great Seattle Wheel, ate lunch in tiny cafes that served, for instance, excellent brie-and-tomato sandwiches (for me) and perfect peanut butter and honey (for Zannah), and took some nature walks. I carved out a little kid-free time with a couple of friends, finished reading a few novels (all of you should run, not walk, to pick up a copy of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena), and watched the Veronica Mars movie (which I loved). This afternoon, I managed a four-mile run in the sunshine, followed by late-afternoon coffee in Seattle while Matt took the kids to REI and a family dinner at Veggie Grill, which is always where the kids want to go when we say, “Hey, where should we eat tonight?” (It’s one of my favorites, too, so no complaints here.)

Life was still normal enough to provide plenty of laundry, bickering between my children, appointments and errands, floors in need of vacuuming, bedtime battles, and a broken lawn mower. I’ve put off most of my “to do” list so that it all needs to happen, oh, tomorrow. But somehow, that bit of daily reality kept me grounded enough to appreciate the moments in which we stepped outside of our ordinary routines every day.

This morning on the radio I listened to a bit on the Benedictine notion of time -- that there is enough time in each day for work, for prayer, for rest, and for play. I started a new writing workshop this weekend, one that will fill up all of the cracks of “spare” time in my day for the next few months. It is a gift that I get to do this. It will actually require that I carve out time I don’t ever think I have, and that will require that I limit the noise I allow in my life. Maybe this week was just training for that.