A reading, quiet morning. I am feeling reflective, yet not.
Restless, yet not. Waiting. I feel as if I am waiting for something, but I am
unsure of what. Mostly I am feeling at quiet loose ends with myself; like I am
in limbo for some reason. Searching? Wondering? Curious? Unsettled or too
settled? Still, none of those words really describe how I feel. I think maybe
this morning I am more about just being in the moment, and yet, not really.
Disconnected? Maybe it is just a morning to purge some thoughts, think them,
make them lucid, and then dispose of them. I don’t feel one way or another,
passionate about any one topic just now. The birds are singing their morning
songs, the sun rises over the pasture in all its silver and gold finery,
casting green misty beams through the trees and the moss, sparkling dew drops
in the grass. It’s a peaceful, quiet time. I want to say it is a fresh morning
– that is what Simonetta called a similar morning in Adine-in-Chianti; that
cool time before the sun comes up strong and true; a freshness in the air, a
cool, calm that almost seems to exist solely to make a person smile.
To match this odd mood I am in I just read this passage from
the book I am currently reading; Falling Together by Marisa de los
Santos. On an impulse, Will asked, “What have you been waiting for?”
When Pen answered, her voice was solemn and sheepish, “How did you know? Because you’re right. I am waiting. It hits me now and then: that I’ve been saving myself for something. A sign. A person.” She gave an embarrassed laugh. “Mostly, though, I’m just busy.”
I understand that. I just said this very thing to a friend
yesterday. I feel as if I am waiting. For nothing in particular, but for
something, somehow. In the meantime, I just feel like I’m busy. A while back I
read an article on the word “busy”. Busy is a catch-all word that can mean most
anything. Busy-work is work that just keeps a person occupied, maybe busy work
is unfulfilling in ways; something to do in order to fill time. Busy is an
excuse we use when we don’t want to really do something – I’m sorry, I’m busy
now, that night, whenever. “I’m too busy” is an implication somehow that my
life is much more important than you or whatever you want to do. There is a lot
of stigma in the word “busy”. And yet we seem to consider it a true, honest
word. We, as a society in general are just too busy. We fill our lives with so
many things; it is almost a badge of honor to be so busy – to be too busy to go
out with friends or to attend that concert, or to even find time for ourselves
to breathe. Busy-ness is the norm now, and I am pretty sure it is not healthy
in any regard. There is that old proverb that idle hands are the devil’s
workshop – but I am pretty sure that does not mean fill every waking moment
with something; slothfulness is a sin and all that. I guess I’ll get back to
that thought when I am not so busy. J
I think busy-ness is an excuse, plain and simple. I have been very aware of the
word and how often I hear it over the last few months. I have found myself avoiding
using it. It does not stop that fact that I often DO have conflicts in my
over-booked schedule sometimes, but it does make me aware that I really do need
to change what I try to fit into my life on a daily or weekly basis. I too
often fill my days with things that are not fulfilling my soul. So Pen’s
statement about waiting; I think that is true in a nutshell. Busy-ness, killing
time, waiting. That is what I am aware of this quiet, reflective, yet not,
morning. I’m in a waiting mood.
