Not very good at moving from one activity to the next. Perhaps that is something to be worked on during this vacation, when I have EOY accounts to do, tons of cleaning, transition of meeting Web activities to free services, and so forth. More to the point, I am perhaps not so good at relaxing as I had thought.

So, what is to be done about that? First, I have to get through the Christmas activities without chemical exposures. Second, I have to leave client work alone until after the first of the year, no matter how delightful the next manuscript promises to be. Third, I must treat the necessary computer work as a side activity, rather than as a major focus. Things to do:

• Financial records
• Housecleaning
• Exercise (stationary bike, weights, and flexibility)
• Rhythm workouts (dance routines…learn a new one!)
• Watch a movie or a television episode each day (that’s what the Netflix is for)
• Get between 8 and 10 hours of sleep—no less than 8, but also no more than 10
• DO NOT READ ANY FICTION!

The most important point of all this, I think, is to remember not to feel guilty about taking the time off that I need. I must not take work telephone calls, because if I do, I will end up working during my vacation…and I am not so good at switching gears.

Word center me, draw me inward, block out distractions, sights and sounds…reduce existence for that brief time span to bare essentials. That center point in which there exists only myself and light.

Sometimes, there are too many reasons why I cannot center there. Obligations and promises, jobs to finish and people to speak with and cherish—sometimes for too many days in a row, until I feel like I’m going to explode. That is why I formed the practice of setting aside the last two weeks of the year as a time when everything else can come to a halt. The family gatherings at Christmas are relaxed and relaxing, for the most part. This year, Christmas falls toward the beginning of my time off, followed by nine to ten days (I haven’t really decided, yet) when time can be poured out of its container, losing structure, and I can flow with the time.

Al has taken to scheduling vacation, also, for the week following Christmas Day. Because he too finds unstructured time refreshing, this works for the both of us. Solitude is not fractured by the other’s presence.

The weeks leading up to this vacation have been a little too busy to suit me, and there have been concerns to ponder. The very real possibility of laying the meeting down, the current unavailability of the on-line facilities for meeting for worship, and the anxiety—not of losing community, but of realizing again that community has not existed there for some years, now. It will be interesting to discover what the alternatives might be.

And, come the week after New Year’s Day, I will have another manuscript to put together for someone, and there will be a résumé to write, and there will be so many fewer things nagging at me, the days will be light, easy to carry. For a while, anyway.

Leaves cover his grave

shadows brush across my heart

remember, again

–~*^*~-

Instead of doing the NaNoWriMo, this year, I am going to try to write a poem for each day of November.