Enough Time

I hit snooze three times this morning and so I’m squeezing in before my seven am deadline, which I’ve been thinking of extending until 8am now that our new schedule pushes stuff a bit later. I’ve been told not to admit when I’m squeezing, that no one can tell, that it’s not about the amount of time I spend on something. That it’s the quality of attention and the experience channeled into the time that really make a difference. And sure. I’ve done stuff where I spent a lot of time but wasn’t really in it, or was kind of floundering around for a while, or just putting in the time. I’ve set that treadmill for such-and-such amount of time and refused to get off even if my knees were hurting and every moment’s thought was, “When will this be over?”

My morning essays are not like that. I love to write these, even when I’m tired, even when there’s not as much time as I’d like to think about what I want to say for the day, or try to say it more artfully, or less artfully, or to have a decent amount of coffee before I get started.

The practice of putting it out there, putting me out there, without a lot of fuss or apology or second-guessing myself, day by day, is working. There’s plenty of time for what feels good for me to do it turns out, especially since it doesn’t take that much time. And there’s this ripple thing that’s been happening where the joy of doing this one thing really has snowballed and made me see how possible it is to enjoy my time doing other stuff too, and doing very very little. I’m going to have a good day. And some coffee, right now.