2002-08-19 - 12:09 a.m.
We got two thousand little reinforcement strips stuck onto two thousand pieces of colored paper this weekend. Only eight thousand left to go. These will be the section dividers for the notebooks we are putting together. The hundreds of notebooks.
We set up an assembly station at the dining room table last night and played a DVD on the laptop computer for some diversion.
Doing something so repetetive makes me analyze every little movement associated with the action, trying to do it faster and more efficiently. Usually I am a slow, methodical worker, but nothing will cure that faster than doing a really nice job on the first dozen sheets or so..... and then looking at the pile of twenty reams and realizing that the task will take the rest of your natural life at this rate.
I once tried to have a factory job and I lasted for all of three days. My job was to sit in front of a big machine that pressed out little plastic rings, and cut the rings apart with an X-acto knife and pack them into plastic bags. Seemed simple. But I never could keep up with it. The supervisor would get me started but then she would walk away, and I would fumble or drop something. Pretty soon I was getting behind. The little rings were starting to fill the bin and fall off onto the floor. I was trying to keep them together and they were under the chair and on the floor and..... there was no OFF switch on that damn machine. And you weren't allowed to get up, so I would sit there and scream for help. They told me I really should be able to get it off of SLOW after the first couple days....
Yes, a bad factory work memory, but this is much more forgiving.
So the notebooks will be an ongoing thing in our lives for a while. But then it will be over and we will have a bunch of money for a new car. I am classifying this as a swimming activity.
We have been so busy lately that....what else...... I have had to develop a theory about it. Inspired by a song I was listening to (Life is a River) today while walking. I was thinking that life can be kept in balance if I can include some of each of the three types of activity in my days.
1. Treading water: Activities which have to be done over and over in order to maintain life and/or a civilized way of living. Such as food preparation/eating/washing up, laundry, shopping, home maintenence, body maintenence, car maintenence, and most (of my) work activities. These are the least rewarding of activities, and yet the most persistent and demanding of "have-to's." Most people could easily spend all of their waking hours attending to these things. There is no way to avoid them, so the only approach is to try to zen out and take some joy in a simple task well done.
2. Swimming (Life is a River--Swim): Activities which do not have to be constantly done over and over and which contribute something to the style/substance of life for yourself or the world. Such as changing or improving your home environment, planting a garden, making/building something, reading, spending time with other people, coming up with a new project at work, or training someone.
3. Climbing (Love is a Mountain--Climb): Activities which, if you did not do them, would never be done by anyone else: Personal writing/communications, poetry, drawing, painting, photography, music. i.e. some kind of unique creative expression.
Obviously, treading water activities try to fill up a life. We feel like we are doing well if we do some swimming activities as well, because then we have something to "show" for our time. And climbing activities--- the things I supposedly live for--- are the first things to get pushed aside. The first things to fall victim to the time crunch or the demands of things far less important.
So today, I did all the treading water type stuff, and stuck sticky strips on papers. Practiced the guitar. Went for a walk..... and found the mushrooms. Which brings me to a whole other story:
They were growing on the side yard of a nearby apartment complex. There were two emormous white mushrooms, the size of dinner plates, flanked by a ring of smaller ones. I took the dog home, and grabbing a sketchbook and pen, ran back down the street to draw the mushrooms. Soon a neighbor lady wandered by with her dog.
"What are you doing?" she says.
"Just drawing the mushrooms."
"Aren't they wonderful? They were just tiny yesterday, and they grew this much over night!" she tells me.
We chat a little more about the mushrooms before she goes on.
Then two other neighbors come by, walking their six dogs.
"Don't eat that!" one of them calls out to me.
"I am not even tempted!" I reply.
The other one, who is a landscape architect, stops to tell me that the mushrooms, arranged in a circle, are called a "Fairy Ring."
I am sitting on the sidewalk, happily drawing mushrooms, and contemplating the possibilities of fairy rings and friendly neighbors.....
Then an attractive young couple comes by with their dog. They don't say a word. They see me drawing the mushrooms, so they come over and kick down and stomp on all the mushrooms, except the ones I was drawing. They destroy the fairy ring.
It is funny how just a small act of meanness can give me such a sick feeling inside. It is not a big devastating thing. I have certainly had worse things happen to me. But sometimes the little things bother me the most, because I just wonder how it is that people can be so meanspirited as to just casually destroy something someone else is obviously enjoying. And unfortunately, it takes a lot of thought for me to keep from letting the mean people destroy the good feeling created by all the nice people.
So, my climbing activity today was a watercolor painting of the mushrooms. I made them all kinds of colors, as magical as possible. To ward off meanness, and encourage climbing, in whatever way possible.
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