I am meant to be putting things into piles. It’s holiday season – school have shut, families are making plans.
I have decided to organise myself by…reading a large novel. This isn’t my usual approach. Normally holiday times come round and I’m prepared, a week in advance, even.
This time round, no. Call it late onset procrastination. Or maybe a seizing of the moment, to find a holiday in what is still an ordinary weekend.
Reading big books. That used to be one of the pleasures of time away. I can think back to us travelling across central Europe by train, the latest tome on my knee, or Dan reading and me looking out the window, taking snapshot after mental snapshot.
Reading big books seems to be part of a distant, pre-parenting past. That’s why I seem to read lots of short articles these days. Easier to stop at the latest call to involvement, whether it’s to admire a Lego building or assist with finding a missing glasses case.
For some reason, I’m not really sure why, I put the computer away and started reading instead. A big book. 900-odd pages. I began last night, and finished the book this evening, sneaking opportunities to hide and read, and read some more.
The found item here…is time. But I’ve used up T – and B that might be for book, and a host of other letters. But my found item today is a sense of holiday.
Permission to stop. Permission to rest, to do something I rarely do, and ignore other to dos for a day.
A day only, mind you. Tomorrow I need to be back to the usual run of the weekend. Catch up, clear the old stuff out of the fridge, work out how much more washing to get done before the start of a new week.
But tonight, I am still on holiday, even if the book is finished. My discovery is the ability to find rest even outside of ‘official’ rest time – no, not just finding rest but demanding it, blocking other things out, wallowing in it.
Just for a day. Sometimes, that’s really all it takes.