This Is Leisure?

My job wore me out so much today that if we had other access to healthcare, I would put in my notice and never look back. Driving to my daughters' school to pick up our youngest I gladly left the job behind and in favor of family time. My girl suggested we go for coffee. We picked up her older sister and drove to the coffee shop. Along the way I asked if they would help me clean the dining room later. We're having people over soon and the house isn't Martha Stewart clean. After the day I'd had at school, it was tough to imagine doing the cleaning at all, so it was a relief when they both said, sure, no problem.

(When they were babies and toddlers, people warned me about how difficult girls would be. They weren't. As they moved through middle school, I was warned how terrible they'd be as teens. Nope. Trust your kids, not people's warnings.)

We came home and my older daughter went to work on the dining room. It's where we dump bags, coats, mail, and most everything else. She cleared all her stuff. I swept and dusted and then my younger daughter cleared her stuff. My wife would clear hers later. Finished in the dining room, I took garbage down to the basement, saw the vacuum cleaner, and remembered that the den carpet really, really needed cleaning. Oh, and the washing machine reminded me of the clothes waiting to be washed. I carried the vacuum up to the first floor, got the laundry from the second floor, brought that to the washer, went up and vacuumed the den, and brought the vacuum back to the basement. I took the broom from the dining room and was about to put it away but instead swept the stairs.

Somewhere in all this I got wondering what happened to being tired from my awful job. I scanned my body and mind. Yep, still tired. But instead of collapsing, I was cleaning the house and somehow feeling less tired. What the hell?

For dinner we were set to have eggplant parmesan. I began prepping while still wondering how all this work was energizing me. It came to me that all of it, strange as it still seems, was a kind of leisure, perhaps the best kind.

Leisure is doing what I want to be doing. It isn't collapsing on the couch. It sure as hell isn't browsing the web, reading the news, or flipping channels. My current job doesn't fulfill me because I can't do things I want to do. Coming home to clean, do laundry, and make dinner doesn't sound like a good time, but I chose to do those things. I wanted not just to have them done but to be doing them. Along the way I got time with my girls, time to think, some solitude and peace. The dining room and den are clean, the laundry is washed and dried, and dinner was delicious.

Here I am now writing, listening to New Chautauqua by Pat Metheny, and thinking about the differences between being a vegetable and enjoying real leisure.

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Much of the thinking about leisure draws on "Reclaim Leisure" which is chapter six of Cal Newport's Digital Minimalism. It's a book I recommend.

Record Store Disappointment?

Out to Albany for a concert, my friend and I dropped in on a good record store ready for some new used vinyl. It has been months since I last bought a record. That's odd. I usually buy at a faster clip, but I've been on a shopping ban and it has felt good. I've a written plan for the ban complete with an exception for out-of-town records stores, so I was all set to buy something new and throw it on the turntable the next day.

But I found nothing.

Really. I couldn't find a single album I really wanted to buy. I went through the store at least twice. (My friend is ridiculously patient with me.) There was nothing I wanted, nothing I needed, nothing at all. I couldn't believe it. I don't remember the last time I went to a record shop and couldn't find anything to buy, but there I was. I walked out with nothing but disappointment.

We went to [our favorite pub], drank oatmeal stout, ate burgers and fries, talked about everything, watched women's basketball, then went to The Egg for Pat Metheny's Side Eyes show which was fantastic in every way. It was a tremendous night. Even the long drive back to Syracuse was good.

I woke the next morning, looked at the records beneath my turntable, pulled out The Pat Metheny Group, cleaned it, dropped the needle, and settled in to write. You know, it sounded just like a new album to me. Not disappointing in the least.

I'm So Open

Sometimes the day when a kid tells me to fuck off and suck his dick works out to be a good one. There's nothing real positive about a kid coming after me like that, other than that I survived, didn't react, and am composed now, but that's not the sum total of the day. Just after he went up one side of me, down the other, and up and down six more times, I had a brief moment and found an email from a friend offering me possibly good news.

I'm in the process of quitting a job at which I am burned out but still functioning. I keep thinking I'll grind to a halt one day, seizing like an engine with a blown head gasket and all the oil gone, but I'm still able to get out of bed each day, write, drive to school, survive the day, and come home to family and more writing. There are times I wish I wasn't quite so high functioning — it would make it easier to take disability — but for better and worse I'm still able to function and will probably make it to June.

Most people I tell about quitting wait a respectful moment then ask, what's next? Mostly I smile and shrug. I don't know what's next. They look at me with pity and concern. Does your wife have a job that can support the family? Not yet. Don't you have a kid going off to college? Yep. The next part is mostly a look but asks, have you lost your mind?

I haven't quite lost my mind, but, like Cowboy Junkies sing, I'm open, so open.

Just outside there waiting.
Just outside the circle.
Waiting there is someone I don't know who.
I'm so open, i'm so open.
I don't sleep most nights,
Just lie awake and count my blessings.
I'll take this endless life
Of perfect pointless mornings.
I'll hold you till the morning comes
'Cause it's all that i can do.
I'm so open. I'm so open.

I'm open to possibilities I can't yet imagine. Pretty much anything is possible. I've done lots of jobs in my life. It's just that I've been a full-time public school teacher for twenty-four years, so it's tough to imagine what else I might try. Rather than try to imagine it, I'm just trying to be so open.

Today maybe something happened. I won't know for a while, but I'm ready to talk with anyone about a way forward, try something new, take a chance. Why not? I won't come back to the job I have now. My head gasket is worn, oil is leaking, and when I'm beginning to overheat. Better to pull over and hear what fortune has to say.

I've been reading Rita Hayworth And Shawshank Redemption to students and I'm drawn to Red's lines on the last page:

I find I am excited, so excited I can hardly hold the pencil in my trembling hand. I think it is the excitement that only a free man can feel, a free man starting a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain.

Uncertain, I like that. Conclusions should be uncertain. I'm so open, so excited, and uncertain. A good mix with which to move forward.

This Shouldn't Be Difficult

I'm wearing an old orange sweater with blue stripes and worrying about it. I haven't worn it all winter as it has been buried under other clothes on a closet shelf. Last week, working on minimalism, I pulled the clothes down and each day have worn something from there to see if it's worth keeping. I eliminated one sweater without even trying it on and kept two others right away. Today, however, I'm stuck in a ridiculous quandary over this sweater. I've been thinking for hours about keeping or discarding it. Like I have nothing better to do.

The sweater is comfortable though a bit baggy and long. The cuffs are not elastic, so I can't push the sleeves up as I like. Obviously it should go into the bag of clothes to donate. Problem solved. Except...

Except for "use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without."

To get rid of a sweater I bought, especially if it's still of use, is not at all frugal. Sure, it's not perfect, but it's not bad and it works. Getting rid of it would be such a waste.

This is the fine line between minimalism and frugality, not at all unlike the quandary in Spinal Tap:

David St. Hubbins: It's such a fine line between stupid, and uh...
Nigel Tufnel: Clever.
David St. Hubbins: Yeah, and clever.

I'm in this mess because I pulled down a pile of clothing, things I haven't worn in a year and found I've got too much stuff. Even without this one I have too many sweaters. This isn't a difficult decision. Come on already.

I'll put it in the donation bag and I'll feel some regret, not for any sentimental attachment to the sweater but for a sentiment about making do and using things until they wear out. But mostly I think I'm trying to escape a mistake.

I bought the sweater and other clothes when I already had too much clothing. That was a mistake and it won't erase the mistake if I make another by hanging onto something I don't need. It will just be a burden.

This shouldn't be that difficult but it is for me. There is so much stuff weighing me down right now. Some of those things are things I've bought that I haven't needed and which I don't use. More of it is the job I'm quitting and questions I have about what comes next. Too much clothing, too much depression, too much anxiety. I need to let some things go and a sweater is an easy place to start.

It may be that I'm assigning more importance to keeping the sweater than it deserves. In all the confusion about my present and future, it's sometimes easier to obsess over an old orange sweater with blue stripes than apply for jobs, write a book, or figure out finances. I can (eventually) make a decision, donate it, and move on to the next piece of clothing.

Maybe other things can be settled so easily.