A time for rest, a time for play, a time for work.  Balance.  I am great at all but the first one.  I feel like I have been going really fast for forty years!  I sit down to read but there is something more pressing to do.  I try not to make lists, to just go about my day, but then I feel like nothing gets done.  I make lists and they are impossible to complete.  I expect everyone around me to be working if I am!  And I feel guilty for taking a break.  What the heck is that?  This month, this year, will be different.

After our whirlwind year of events and then moving, I am tired.  Happy, but tired.  Now that I have less to do (though there is always something to do) I find that I can convince myself a little better to take it easy.  I am not sure why I have been rushing through my life!

This homestead is changing me.  The beautiful stillness outside, the complete silence, the feeling out here is not rushed.  This time of life is changing me.  The children don’t need to be rushed anywhere.  Doug doesn’t need to rush to work.  I don’t have to hurry and get things done and supper on the table before everyone gets home.  Things are slowing down on their own.  Now we need to.

We have spent a lot of time rushing places.  Always ridiculously early.  I still do not like it when people are really late but I am learning to relax a little and let things fall into place without stress.  We are still on time, we just aren’t an hour early to everything.  We’d be two hours early to farmers markets.  I would get so frustrated with Nancy for not being there early.  For coming in right before we opened.  But we were always set up and ready for the crowd.  It was when she died suddenly that I realized what a waste of energy and time I had spent wishing she would be on time.  Our relationship during the markets wouldn’t have been strained and I would have more delightful memories (and an hour longer of sleep) if I had just settled down.

We had one market that we did for years that if you didn’t get there two plus hours early then you got squeezed out of your spot.  Doug was always frantic to get there and even though he tried not to be frustrated with me while I was picking last minute produce to take, it was still stressful.  We dropped that market and won’t return this year, opting instead for markets where we know we will have a spot.  It is time to stop rushing here and there.

Here in the house on this beautifully foggy morning I let Doug sleep and take in the silence of a cold winter morning where I have nowhere to be.  I realize that our bodies cannot possibly withstand constant work and play with no rest.  I must learn to take a magazine over to the couch with a cup of tea and not get up for its duration.  I must learn to take leisurely walks and breathe.  I must learn to breathe.  Especially now that we have fewer places to be.  Come summer, when the chaos begins, hopefully I will have learned to breathe, move methodically, smile, accept, get there when I get there, and notice life around me.  Increase my senses and take in this beautiful world we live in instead of rushing through it.

What are your favorite ways to rest?