Most mornings, I try to take the kids outside. On a good day, we get out of the house by 9:30a. Sometimes it takes longer, and I find myself getting impatient, anxious that we are wasting time, that we will miss something.
Today we were out the door by 9:15am. And I was really pleased. But then, I thought, what is the rush? I mean, for sure, if we put off the morning walk too long, we get into the uncomfortably hot part of the day. But the difference between being out the door at 9:15am and 10:15am? Not a big deal. The goal these days is all about engaging and occupying the children. The time has to be filled somehow. If it is filled by leisurely jam smeared breakfast and shoe battles rather than fresh air and sunshine, is that worth consternation these days when time is plentiful because commitments are few?
Of course the children would love to have more time to splash in the creek. And if we get to the basketball courts too late, there will already be people using the hoop on the shady side. But there is always tomorrow to shoot hoops in the shade and send leaf boats down the river.
So maybe this is our version of the journey being as important as the destination. Yesterday I took the children to the local Farm Park, about a thirty minute drive away. We’ve been there once before, but I had always thought it too far away to go regularly. It’s kind of like, when I was in college and home was a five hour plane ride. My personal calculation was that it wasn’t worth the plane ride unless I got to spend one day with my parents for every hour on the plane. Well, the Farm Park was like that in my head – would the adventure be worth the drive?
But yesterday I realized: the adventure starts at home – with talk about going, and packing our picnic lunch, and making sure everyone has hats and sunscreen. And the adventure continues with the car ride – listening to Hansel and Gretel (because it was the only CD in the car), and then getting a little lost because Google maps does not give you enough lead time on this one particular exit. And the adventure continues at home with emptying the backpack and throwing away the string cheese wrappers.
I don’t want to be frivolous with my time, but these days, I’m finding I’m looking at time differently. There is, of course, the way too much time I spend scrolling the phone – and that is draining, and I do need to work on being more mindful of that. But there are things that I used to impatiently regard as time wasters – the dawdling children, the u-turns because of missed exits, the long walk across a sunny meadow to get to the swing in the shade – lately, in the midst of these things, I find myself pausing and breathing and thinking, “This will take the time that it takes. What is the rush?” Perhaps in a post-COVID world, I will feel differently and move again at a pressing pace. But perhaps not.