Saturdays were meant for getting things done...Or getting nothing done at all
I have a "love/hate" relationship with Saturdays. During the week, it seems like I am always looking forward to them because Saturday is a day that is supposed to "belong to me." But that is so rarely the case...they usually belong to my -- "LIST." I won't even bother to explain the list -- but it has been with me for a very long time...and sometimes comes in written format -- but other times it exists only in my head. Things that I SHOULD, OUGHT, MUST or HAVE to do. How an item gets on that list is a whole other process that I am not sure that even I understand...but I am real clear when it does finally make it on "the list." There is one other word that is occasionally associated with "the List" -- WANT...as in things I WANT to do.
The perfect Saturday is when the things on "the List" -- all the SHOULD, OUGHT, MUST or HAVE TO do also are on the WANT TO portion of the List. This would be the "love" part of the relationship.
Most Saturdays are imperfect...they have more of the SHOULDs and OUGHTs that just HAVE to be done...with one or two WANTS on there. I can live with that...isn't that how life is most of the time.
I won't waste your time with the HATE portion of my relationship with "the List." I know you already get it -- probably having the same relationship with your own personal "list" even if you don't spend time thinking about it...(sorry I forced some of you to acknowledge what you would prefer to ignore by talking about this).
Anyway...this Saturday definitely fell into the middle category. Quite a few things that I had no desire to do -- but I had to...just because they had made it to "the list" of things that SHOULD and HAD to be. However, there were several precious moments that were a gift from heaven...they weren't even on the list -- not even in the WANT to category. They were just a serendipitous surprise. Aren't those the best? I was doing something that I OUGHT to do -- going through a box of correspondence that has collected for too long with me just adding to it...and I found the following gem and thought I would share....
You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could. – Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum
Perhaps it wasn't worth the preamble that I put you through to get there... but I so loved this thought...and wanted to share it -- but part of the sweetness of it for me was that it came to me as an unexpected blessing...God does that for me so often. Blesses me right in the middle of something that seems like just another CHORE...kind makes me WANT to do the SHOULDs, OUGHTs, HAVE to's and MUSTs -- just to see what happens in the middle of them.
Hope your days are well...
The perfect Saturday is when the things on "the List" -- all the SHOULD, OUGHT, MUST or HAVE TO do also are on the WANT TO portion of the List. This would be the "love" part of the relationship.
Most Saturdays are imperfect...they have more of the SHOULDs and OUGHTs that just HAVE to be done...with one or two WANTS on there. I can live with that...isn't that how life is most of the time.
I won't waste your time with the HATE portion of my relationship with "the List." I know you already get it -- probably having the same relationship with your own personal "list" even if you don't spend time thinking about it...(sorry I forced some of you to acknowledge what you would prefer to ignore by talking about this).
Anyway...this Saturday definitely fell into the middle category. Quite a few things that I had no desire to do -- but I had to...just because they had made it to "the list" of things that SHOULD and HAD to be. However, there were several precious moments that were a gift from heaven...they weren't even on the list -- not even in the WANT to category. They were just a serendipitous surprise. Aren't those the best? I was doing something that I OUGHT to do -- going through a box of correspondence that has collected for too long with me just adding to it...and I found the following gem and thought I would share....
You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could. – Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum
Perhaps it wasn't worth the preamble that I put you through to get there... but I so loved this thought...and wanted to share it -- but part of the sweetness of it for me was that it came to me as an unexpected blessing...God does that for me so often. Blesses me right in the middle of something that seems like just another CHORE...kind makes me WANT to do the SHOULDs, OUGHTs, HAVE to's and MUSTs -- just to see what happens in the middle of them.
Hope your days are well...
Great quote!!! I always think that way about my Dad who died at a young age. I am just glad I had him for as long as I did and loved him with every fiber of my being (still do!).
ReplyDeleteLove you!