How We Spend Our Days
The first—and among the best—parenting advice was as simple as it is brilliant: you sleep when the baby sleeps.
I’m applying a similar principle to writing in these days of stress and grief. Some days, I feel completely incapable of the basic sequencing required to string words into sentences. Other days, my head feels too noisy for anything coherent to emerge from the jumble. I have to pay attention to my mental and emotional resources so that I don’t miss the window in which I can create.
This is new space for me. I normally subscribe to Annie Dillard’s philosophy that writing is more a matter of discipline than inspiration. Whatever the stereotype of the writing life may be, those who succeed are the ones who make a habit of it—who sit down at the keyboard, day in and day out, and produce. She says it this way:
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.
For about a month now, I’ve struggled to keep a schedule, and so I’ve often given in to chaos and whim. It’s hard to say how much of that is an inevitable part of a major life change and how much is just personal failure. Thankfully, the people around me haven’t passed judgment on my floundering. I’m trying not to judge either.
At the same time, what we do with this hour and with that one is, in fact, what we are doing. As my strength returns over time, I’m sensing more and more need to get back on track. I wrote last week about my new paper calendar, which has started to fill up. This week I’m helping with a leadership event for new pastors, many of whom I’ve had as former students either at the university or Local Pastor Licensing School. I’m reconnecting with friends. I’m volunteering for things I’m passionate about.
What I’m coming to understand is how intimidating it is to have this much freedom over my own schedule. I’ve spent years working in a certain rhythm, which includes carving out time for family and friends and hobbies around the obligations of work. For a few months more anyhow, I have the opportunity to put those things in the center and choose my work around them.
That sounds wonderful, when I write it. The practice of such freedom is a lot more difficult. Without an external structure to give shape to my days, I’m having to test out different rhythms—to create the lifeboat in the midst of the shipwreck. I’m only starting to learn how to wield my newfound power over my daily life.
I think the lesson for me right now—maybe always, if I stopped to hear it—is to let grace and discipline work as partners. I need more structure than I’ve had recently, and I’m working on that. But I’m also still not quite myself. I’m learning to work within my capacity, even as I try to increase my capabilities.
So right now I’m back to where I was when our children were small. Sleep when the anxiety sleeps. Work when the mental cylinders are firing. To augment a good Southern proverb, make hay while the sun’s shining, and get off the tractor when it’s not.
All of this to say, here’s this week’s Penny—not on Monday, as was the goal, but on Tuesday. One does what one can.
Still, even a day late, I think the lessons I’m learning translate to more lives than just mine. How we spend our days is how we spend our lives. Let’s try to spend them well.
