I’m having the hardest time finding the motivation to write this column. I’ve been putting it off all day (all of the past several days, actually) – even though column writing is something I generally like to do.
I’ve had a number of excuses ranging from my lack of a topic to the chill in the vicinity of the computer.
Mostly, though, it’s just laziness.
I’m now six weeks into what has been a very domestic winter break and mostly domestic interterm.
Without class or work, it’s been about six weeks since I last had an assignment – six weeks without a deadline I really had to meet.
Aside from making it to the dentist on time, what I did and when I did it were completely up to me.
The freedom is a wonderful feeling and not one I get very often when school is in session.
The problem, though, is that no deadlines equals no results, or at least fewer results than I hope for. For that reason, I’m anxious to get back to schedules and syllabi: I don’t like feeling unproductive, and when left to my own device, that’s usually how I end up feeling.
That I actually want (on some level) my freedom to be limited was one of the personal realizations I made during my interterm at home with the family.
Having so much free time got me thinking about time in general.
One afternoon, for example, I saw a school bus while I was walking on a trail by my house.
So far that day, I had slept late, read a little, eaten lunch, maybe done some cooking, or a crossword puzzle, or some sewing on my quilt.
It seemed so strange the kids on the bus would have already spent an entire day at school when I had accomplished so little.
When time is not in short supply, it decreases in value and usefulness.
Not only can you spend two hours counting the bumps on the ceiling (or doing something equally unproductive), you regularly do.
Then suddenly it’s 5:30 and your mom’s coming home from work and you realize that you’re going to have a pretty pathetic report when asked for an account of your day.
At least, that’s how it goes when the “you” is actually “I.”
How I did spend my time leads to my second self-realization of my unintentionally educational interterm: It’s a good thing I’m going to college.
More specifically, it’s a good thing I’m going to college for something other than a “Mrs. degree.”
In my six weeks at home with little that was organized, necessary, required or due, I decided to help out around the house.
I did the laundry, did the dishes, did some shopping, cleaning, baking, cooking.
Deep in my domesticity, I even worked on a quilt I’d started last year.
In essence, I became a housewife (fortunately unmarried and childless).
In some ways, I really liked it.
I enjoyed cooking and found a sense of purpose in keeping the piles of dirty clothes and dishes at bay.
Yet housewifery, I discovered, was frequently frustrating and surprisingly difficult.
My quilt was the main source of agony.
Sewing looks easy. If you see the finished product, you’ll think it took about two days to make.
But behind the straight seams and even edges are the countless seams I re-did because they were crooked and the countless times I re-pinned because the material had again slid out of place.
As I would make these revisions I’d sigh, thinking that writing a term paper is really much easier than this.
Cooking tends to give me problems, too.
I’ll forget I’m doubling or halving a recipe or forget the bread is still in the oven.
And even if I follow the instructions precisely, the dish might turn out too dry or be nowhere near done when the timer begins its beeping.
And then there’s cleaning.
I definitely wouldn’t last as the 1950s Betty Crocker type of housewife who vacuumed twice weekly and dusted every day.
If you clean too often, you never notice that you clean.
I need a career with some visible results.
When the GET(insert number) folks are making plans for the future of interterm, they should feel no qualms about letting students off the hook with only three January classes.
This past month for me was a lesson in psychology and philosophy, metaphysics and life.
Not to mention home economics, to which I am very glad my future has not been permanently sewn.