Slammed by the Start of School

I came home from vacation about two weeks ago Sunday.  Monday I started in at the computer, cranking out documents for my class.  Tuesday: Orientation.  Wed, Thurs, more of the same then Friday we helped Dave's niece move to LA.  Saturday I prepared a lesson for the women in my church, Sunday I gave it and Monday I started teaching.  From one thing to another to another, this is the first moment I've had to breathe since we returned.  And as I speak, I'm washing bedding, laundry and hope to do a bathroom or two before the weekend is over (I'm not even mentioning the vacuuming!).

Busy is as busy does.

My nephew and his wife had a new baby.  My son and his wife welcomed the second of their soon-to-be-adopted children into their home (just found out yesterday), and his new job has him cooking at work about 12 hours a day on a the good days.  Another son spends his days, like me, on the computer, writing in-house code for their software.  My mother and father saw their granddaughter's college commencement, then a niece's baby blessed.  Another sister just completed Beach Week with her children-by-marriage and their families.  A friend has been setting up her classroom, moving desks, bookcases, putting stuff up on walls.  Another son and his family are settling in to their new house and are exploring and playing and talking walks in the creek behind their house.  (Yes.  IN the creek.)  And that same son is busy in his new job.  My daughter's husband begins dental school next week, and their children started school the same day as I.  Another friend is writing her syllabi for her classes.  Another friend is mounting an exhibition of her infrared images of Japanese Internment camps.

Busy is as busy does.

 

An old saying goes "better to wear out, than rust out," but there are some days when I just want to go back to that evening in southern Idaho when we stopped in a tiny town called Paris and photographed the sun setting on the mountains across the valley.  No one was on the streets, and the only people I saw were in cars that occasionally passed by on the road below.  We'd taken a side street up into a small hillside cemetery, where surely the town's fathers and forefathers had been laid to rest. We turned and looked across the valley, the scene changing moment by moment: golds and purples and rosy hues that compelled to stay and enjoy, to rest,  rather than hurrying down the 89 to our final destination.

So when the knots in your shoulders become like stone, take a moment and think about when you paused from the busy to let the day, the twilight, seep in.

And take a breath.