Struggling through with joy... |
kind of.
Struggling through with joy... |
I always struggle with time, but it’s especially bad lately. I think I have what my mother calls a ‘poor time concept.’
This weekend I learned about a Japanese concept of pause in a podcast, but it’s greater than a pause. In the podcast it was explained as arriving at a place early enough to take a look around, or having the time to just be with a poem after you’ve read it. I long for this kind of time but I don’t know how to cultivate it. Nearly every moment of my day is scheduled. As a teacher, I am working from the minute I walk into my classroom until I leave it. I know of teachers who take a short walk at lunch and I used to sit in the lounge to eat, but none of those things seem possible now. How do I work this concept of pausing, of having bubbles of time to simply be and experience before moving on to the next thing? Instead I find myself angry and resentful of all the things that take me away from bubbles of time: demanding children, colleagues who constantly open the door between our classrooms, meetings, the need to prepare decent meals or fold laundry. I sometimes feel as if I am drowning in my obligations to others an never meeting everyone’s needs, least of all my own. Then I feel incredibly selfish. I chose motherhood and teaching. I adore my demanding children, who are demanding because of their age. I don’t have a solution to this problem of time. I keep searching for advice, but too often it comes from people who are not in the same situation I am in. I think, perhaps, the solution is to suck it up and make time. Get up 15 minutes earlier. Gently close the door between the classrooms sometimes. Read the poem and sit, just for a minute, before making dinner. Find the time. How do you find the time?
2 Comments
Oh, man... I feel this. My kids are older, but there are still endless demands for my time, and the friends most likely to give advice just absolutely don't relate.
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Melanie White
3/9/2021 10:32:18 am
I had a moment of recognition and I think I listened to the same podcast. Perhaps is was On Being...but, I too, was struck by this idea of holding space to absorb ideas, to take in poems. And, I don't have a solution beyond the concept of time. What takes up this time and how can mothers whose lives are already not their own? Maybe it is others who have the "poor time concept"?
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