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I seem to be playing a little game with myself these days: how far can I go? I'm assuming—rightly, I hope—that the answer to that will become clear at some point.
How far can I go in dropping activities before I dissolve into a big puddle of indolence? I don't have a lot of experience with this. I've spent my life doing, sometimes from necessity, sometimes to counter what I fear is an innate laziness—the kind of laziness that brings shame if someone else sees it.
This fear's long history dates back to my childhood. In my memory (which may not be reliable), all I ever wanted to do was read. I see this now as an escape mechanism to avoid my more extroverted, noisy family. But maybe I'm making this up. At any rate, I do know that as a child I read constantly. I did other things: practiced the piano, made good grades (essential if you wanted parental approval in our family), and performed my chores no more reluctantly than did my siblings. Nevertheless Eileen, my mother, saw me as lazy. So she called me, whenever she saw evidence of this trait, "Queenie."
Carrying Queenie in my subconscious for these many decades made me pretty sensitive to the question of laziness, so I've always worked hard. I've not ever been a decent housekeeper (though I did used to vacuum, I'm sure) so I deliberately did other things to compensate: I made all our bread and cooked our meals from scratch, sewed clothes, knitted, and volunteered. Now we have the blessed Cristina who comes twice a month to do the cleaning that I won't do.
My game these days consists of dropping one activity after another, leaving my days (and most definitely my evenings) as empty as I can make them. I think I want to see how I will fill my time once I have, say, two or three weekdays totally empty. Will I just read more? Do more Ken-Ken puzzles? Or will I remove myself to a quiet room and practice my tai chi or meditate for longer periods? Or perhaps I'll rebel, leap up screaming from my chair and race to the kitchen saying, "I can't stand this idleness! I'm going to make six piecrusts and a new batch of walnut-buckwheat crackers. I'm going to make bread until the freezer can't hold another loaf. No more lolling about! Time's a-wastin'." And so much for idleness.
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com
