Becca Rowan is a writer and the author of Life in General, a collection of essays about mid-life as experienced by an American woman in the 21st century. Becca loves creating connections by sharing stories on her popular blog.
It feels as if I’ve been doing everything but writing these days. My days seem full, yet at the end of them I wonder what I’ve accomplished. It’s a concept with which I’ve struggled quite often over the years, this notion of Enough. Having it. Doing it. Being it. Happily I am becoming comfortable with the idea of not having a long checklist with all the items neatly ticked off as done. I find quiet and stillness restorative.
And I can use all the restoration I can come by.
One of the things I love best about our house is the windows. There are six large windows in the living room, four on one wall, and two on either side of the fireplace. And, adjacent to this expanse of windows, are sliding doors that lead onto the deck.
“Set wide the window,” wrote Edith Wharton, “let me drink the day.” I spend a lot of time these days “drinking the day” from these windows.
That phrase has many connotations, doesn’t it? Over the past few months, it’s cropped up with alarming regularity, usually after a visit to a doctor’s office where one or the other of us has been diagnosed with some new ailment. “What’s next??” I exclaimed in exasperation last week when my bone density scan revealed that my long-stable osteopenia had developed into severe osteoporosis; and then my dentist found a tooth that needed a crown and possibly a root canal.
But rather than considering myself a close ancestor to Job, thinking that whatever’s next is likely to be catastrophic rather than celebratory, I’ve decided to take control of that little phrase and turn it on its ear. So What’s Next becomes a rallying cry for branching out, ramping up, taking a chance. For looking forward and moving beyond. For deep cleansing breaths and kicking off the traces.
My son was the most creative child I ever knew. Because he grew up as an only child in a neighborhood without other children nearby, he developed an entire world of creative projects to keep himself occupied. From the age of three until adulthood, he lived and breathed for this imaginary universe of characters which he wrote about, drew in cartoon adventures, and made video and audio recordings. He had his own little franchise and it occupied nearly all of his waking thoughts. He was so focused on these creative projects, and they were so important to him, that school always seemed like a huge waste of time, something he did only because he had to, a task to hurry and get out of the way so he could return to his “real work”. Nothing made him happier than the hours and hours he spent creating.
Whenever I’m tempted to throw my own creative endeavors under the bus in favor of “being productive” with my time, I try to recall my son’s creative fervor in his childhood days.
It finally happened.
Winter arrived today.
Icy rivulets ran down the windowpanes in harmony with hot coffee streaming into the pot. Howling winds battered the house as a Mozart Piano Concerto danced gently on the stereo.
Leaden gray skies hung heavily over us as warm firelight flickered in the living room.
We are making the most of this wintry Sunday morning.
Naturally books are part of our response to winter.
