I want I tell you how my day at the cottage is going. Something feels different. It’s not like any other day that I’ve spent here in the past three years. I think it has something to do with the New Year, this first year of my life without my mom. I sense a new kind of freedom, although Mom (and Dad) didn’t hold me back from following my bliss.
Actually, I’ve always had freedom at the cottage but today, this first day here in 2012, I’m responding in a new way-- less planning, more following the whim of the moment. Oh, from time to time the ‘shoulds’, like the mergansers among the rocks, swim by and I give them a glance, and then go on with what I want to do. I’d say that I’m living ‘carpe momentum’ more than ‘carpe diem’.
Okay, enough blabbing. Here’s my day so far. I woke up at 3, got out of bed at 4:15 and went through my usual morning routine of coffee, reading and watching the sea. Then there was email, oatmeal with cinnamon and prunes, jigsaw puzzle, sunrise, reading, napping in the sun, more email, more reading, more jigsaw, hungry again so I fried up a couple of eggs and an English muffin.
Um, that reads like a to-do list. Where’s the freedom? Well, the freedom is in how I felt about it all. I kept releasing ‘shoulds’ as I moved from one activity to another. Should I take a walk? Should I finish the chapter? Should I waste time on a jigsaw puzzle? Should I eat two breakfasts?
The ‘shoulds’ stopped being ‘shoulds’.
(I did take a walk...because I wanted to.)
Actually, I’ve always had freedom at the cottage but today, this first day here in 2012, I’m responding in a new way-- less planning, more following the whim of the moment. Oh, from time to time the ‘shoulds’, like the mergansers among the rocks, swim by and I give them a glance, and then go on with what I want to do. I’d say that I’m living ‘carpe momentum’ more than ‘carpe diem’.
Okay, enough blabbing. Here’s my day so far. I woke up at 3, got out of bed at 4:15 and went through my usual morning routine of coffee, reading and watching the sea. Then there was email, oatmeal with cinnamon and prunes, jigsaw puzzle, sunrise, reading, napping in the sun, more email, more reading, more jigsaw, hungry again so I fried up a couple of eggs and an English muffin.
Um, that reads like a to-do list. Where’s the freedom? Well, the freedom is in how I felt about it all. I kept releasing ‘shoulds’ as I moved from one activity to another. Should I take a walk? Should I finish the chapter? Should I waste time on a jigsaw puzzle? Should I eat two breakfasts?
The ‘shoulds’ stopped being ‘shoulds’.
(I did take a walk...because I wanted to.)