Day 102: Rest

I love the concept of synchronicity, the idea that sometimes, things come together in unexpected but serendipitous ways.  Today, it's a column by Margaret Renkl in the NYT; she's an author whose writing I love, especially when she's describing the natural world, which she does with a deep sense of connection and joy.  Today's column is about rest, which she explores in the context of the commandment to rest on the Sabbath.  It's worth saying here that I am not religious, but the call to rest, to appreciate the world from a place of rest, and to allow wisdom to arise from rest, is one that resonates deeply.  In fact, there was a time when I took a weekly digital shabbat (idea taken from someone else), stepping away from email and texts and blogs and online anything from sundown one day to sundown the next.  I only left my phone on to receive phone calls from my daughter at college, or from my mom and dad.  I really loved the stretched-out feeling of that day.  And I loved that it challenged me to be present for my own downtime, instead of finding easy distraction in the form of digital lethe.  I spoke with a mentor on Friday about reinstituting this practice in my life - and then spent the weekend grading.  It did have to be done, but I would like to frame it as a rare instance, rather than the norm.  And then this morning, I opened the Times during a rare break in my day (reading and eating at the same time, and why yes, that is rather mindless, isn't it?), and there was Renkl's column, reminding me of the sacredness of rest, reminding me that I owe myself and the world space and spaciousness.

It occurs to me, reading this over before hitting "post", that this has implications for my magpie year.  But it also occurs to me that the goal of this year was to encourage myself to write, and to see what I learned by doing so.  And maybe what I'm learning is that I write better from charged batteries, and that recharging my batteries is a legitimate thing to plan to do.  I will mull this week, and you will be the first to know if I end up reclaiming a day from the online world.