Savoring Joy

Last week the sun was shining. This was momentous because, since moving back to Oregon, I can't EVER remember two solid weeks of May sunshine.

Our spring weather usually comes in the liquid variety, which is great for gardens and skin cancer prevention but leaves us all with a Vitamin D deficiency.

All week long I had been doing the same thing; namely ignoring the gorgeous weather in favor of getting things done.

I'd been working furiously on my edit of Losing Hope, swooping into school at the last minute to fetch my children, running them to after school activities, doling out snacks, making dinners, doing laundry. Most of you know the drill, and if you don't there's a brief outline for you to follow in the previous sentence.

On the day in question I had done all the aforementioned things when I suddenly realized I had twenty minutes of free time. Instead of focusing on the long list of things that I could have/should have/usually would have been doing, I wandered outside and sat down in the lounge chair in my backyard. 

Emails and Twitter alerts were piling up. Losing Hope was calling to me. Child #1 had to get to her concert by 6:00. Meals needed to be planned. A library book was almost overdue and there were dishes in my kitchen sink but instead of attending to any of those things I just sat in the sun.

Both children came out to observe me, like I was some kind of strange backyard art installation.

"What's she doing?" Child #2 asked his sister.

"She's lounging." Child #1 told him.

I pretended I couldn't hear them talking about me, despite their being six feet away and stared up through the leaves of my fig tree.

 A moment later the kids spread a blanket in the grass and were on their backs staring up at the sky. "Shouldn't we be getting ready for my concert?" asked Child #2 after two or three minutes of contemplating clouds.

"I set an alarm on my phone," I told her. "We aren't going to think about any to-dos until it goes off."

And we didn't.

We lounged, infused ourselves with Vitamin D and daydreamed from 4:25 until 4:45. After that we went back to the rush and press of our lives.

But I think our twenty minute break made us savor the rest of the day that much more. And, that we were a little more joyful because of it.