I haven’t had many bleghy moments lately. Maybe it’s because I’ve been ridiculously busy–not my favorite way to be, but how do you manage the lives of five people without being ridiculously busy? I might need a personal assistant when all three are involved in activities. Good thing they are available for people who can only pay them ten bucks a month.
Ridiculously busy is not my natural state. I start to forget things, and do things like leave my debit card in my pants, rather than my wallet, and think I’ve lost it and can’t even find the pants I was wearing because I actually put them back in the drawer. I also back into curbs (in my defense, I was late, the curb was invisible, and I am secretly trying to wreck the Storm Trooper anyway).
But I once read this facebook meme (which I pronounce “may may” because it’s more fun that way) that said “Stop the glorification of busy.” I love that, believe it to my core, and yet am still so very busy. My creativity lovvves to NOT be busy. The summer was a success, in my opinion, because I did not plan much at all for most of the summer. We did just about nothing, minus our super-awesome-action-packed-adventure as the summer’s finale. Our summer was the equivalent of a lame-o fireworks display with a surprise FANTASTIC finale. But why is lazy and unscheduled “lame-o”? It wasn’t. We slept in, played outside, ate some food, went a few places…and the kids were happy. Why is slow considered boring?
Slow is beautiful. Simplification is beautiful. In this life we’re in–which is not in a hut on a tropical island where we wake slowly and go for a dip in the morning, but rather immersed in the American midwest among minivans and Starbucks and travel mugs and yoga pants–slow means only choosing two activities versus all seven Tuna is interested in, and only one for the little ones. Slow means setting timers on screen time and forcing them to actually play with their toys, or each other. The definition of busy has been modified. Slow means eating together as a family at least three times a week, rather than every night. Just as my standards of cleanliness have changed, so have my standards of busy. For alone time, I can get now get by on a trip to Target without kids every other week. (Exaggeration there–I totally need my workout classes with the free childcare.)
During the summer, I had my bleghy moments because my mind slowed down enough to see them in my day to day. Like the Matrix, I was able to manipulate time and space to see the bleghs in between. There is no spoon in the summertime. Now all I see are spoons, and suddenly, and all freaking shiny. Perhaps the key to stopping that glorification is to see those moments even during the busiest times. Ideally, we may be jetting from one busy to the next busy, and still see the space in between breaths. I think that that’s what it means to stop the glorification of busy–see the space between, no matter how fast you’re moving. Deep breaths, and you may be slow whenever you wish, no matter what’s going on around you.
My favorite from Thich Naht Hahn’s “Peace is Every Step” is: “breathing in, I relax my body. breathing out, I smile.”
With this, there is no busy.
Because Boys 