59th street bridge

I handed my book in and yesterday I did nothing.

Well, not nothing. I made brownies; I started two loaves of bread. I puttered around in the kitchen like I used to at my mom’s house in the summer in college, when I worked at the children’s library in the mornings and time spread out in front of me like a picnic blanket. I watched TV for a while (a long while). I read.

But mostly: nothing.

I thought over and over: I should get up, I have work to do, all those things I’ve been putting off for weeks while I finished.

I made myself stay on the couch.

It was harder than it should have been, really. I’m not wired for it. It made me feel irresponsible and guilty; it made me feel like I was cutting school. Did you see that up there, how I told you I did nothing and then rushed to amend it, to make sure you knew I wasn’t a total waste of space? Like taking a day off after turning a book in would somehow make me one?

A lot has been written about busy-ness, about how never sitting still is some kind of weird badge of honor, how filling up the calendar pages means we’re somehow getting more out of our lives. And maybe that’s true. But I was happy doing nothing yesterday, and I want to remember that this summer. This summer I want to s l o w  d o w n.