A Slower Saturday

"Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it...but by sitting still, and the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill...If one just keeps on walking everything will be all right." (Soren Kierkegaard)

I typically awake around the same time every day. 5 out of 7 days, I am up early for work. Saturday and Sunday early arising just becomes part of the routine. My mind and body doesn't have a weekend setting. I can sometimes fall back asleep, as I did yesterday. I slept in to about 7:30. Rip Van Winkle stuff.

But, I am usually up at 5:00 AM and just drift back to La La Land if I am lucky. Usually, once awake, I stay awake.

I tried something different yesterday after getting up later. After making my To-Do List for the day which was typical, I decided to avoid multi-tasking. That is, I wouldn't grade papers, BBQ the meat, do the laundry, etc., all at the same time. Sometimes multi-tasking is a necessity, especially for moms. There is only so much time for tasks that must get done.

For me, what happens is that I get stressed trying to juggle all of the balls at once. I may have saved some time yet it has caused me to press. With all the time saved, but nerves frayed, all that happens is that I am finished with my To-Do at 2:00 PM and now face that gap where I have nothing planned.

Thus, yesterday I went slower and more solo on my tasks. I graded papers first for the class that I am teaching. That took a couple of hours on its own. I did nothing else during that time. Just got that one task finished. Then, I threw the slab of 9 pounds of pork loin on the BBQ without starting anything else until I was more in a maintenance mode with it cooking. Being high in fat, it had set off a grease fire. I concentrated on getting that under control by turning down the heat and putting the meat up up the higher rack which is further from the flame.

With the BBQ'ing pork cooking along without needing much oversight, I then started the laundry. If I had tried to start the laundry sooner, the pork would have been turned into a piece of charcoal. I would have been inattentive to the engulfing fire. After the laundry was started, then I made the E-8 superdrink. So, I multi-tasked in unfolding layers versus lighting all the task fireworks at once.

After the laundry was well underway, the pork cooked and cooling, then I went out and mowed the grass. Rain was coming and I got the mowing in under the wire. I arrived at the time of about 4:00 with pretty much everything finished but feeling strangely at peace. I usually have post To-Do jitters from all of the frenetic activity and have to come down from it. Yesterday, I was chill.

I had a beer and savored it. Only one beer, for the whole day and night.

Where I got the idea to slow down a bit was from Thursday. We (my Co-Teacher and I) had an unfortunate incident in our classroom perpetrated by several students. Without getting into more detail, I was frustrated and angry with the students involved who used poor judgment. I debated consequences. I came home and weighed my response for the next day. I didn't want to lash out. I decided to go for a walk. It was a beautiful afternoon. The sun was shining.

Walking is always conducive to me thinking. With running, most of my bodily resources are dedicated to putting one foot in front of the other and keep moving. With walking, there is the re-allocation of resources less to the body and more to the mind. I slow down and get my body and mind in sync. I process through things. After an hour and thirty minutes of walking, I came to a conclusion. There would be consequences for the students' conduct that arose directly as an accounting of their actions and the steps that I would take to limit their freedom for the foreseeable future.

There were to be other consequences to-be issued by administration. Mine were specifically enacted to help prevent a similar incident again. I saw it as a ledger of sorts. The offending students had removed credit from an account and were now in debt. My consequence of restricting their freedom was not abstract, it was concrete. Any parent or guardian calling about it would know quickly that my response was not capricious and arbitrary. It was instead the logical consequence of misbehavior and my desire to avoid a similar occurrence of such behavior in the future.

I was calm and measured when issuing the accountability. It needed no long explanation. The students took the penalty peacefully.

I went slow.