It takes an Act of God to slow me down...

This time last year, I was a maniac. I was working somethng like 50 hours a week, every week. The bigger problem was that I couldn't STOP. I was so revved up from the pace that I'd get home and be unable to sit still. I was planting shrubs on Thanksgiving morning, for goodness' sake. I made myself sick and crazy with constant busy-ness. This weekend, it rained. Then it rained some more. I did get outside and plant a little bit, between the raindrops, because I have pots of things that need to be in the ground and would feel guilty if they died. But, by and large, I didn't do much of anything. I was supposed to work on Sunday, but that project fell through (and was resurrected this morning...how symbolic). Saturday, we pretty much goofed around all afternoon and evening. Yesterday, I watched TV. I made phone calls. I read bits of two books, Brunelleschi's Dome and Good Life, Good Death. The first is appealing to my geeky art-history self, the second is more in my year-long process of trying to understand and learn from all the deaths in my life this year. This is the first time in a long while that I just read for pleasure. For some reason, I can't read novels much since Dad died. I think I'm too caught up in my own narrative to hang onto someone else's for long. Graphic novels are good. The Sandman stories have obsessed both M and I. (Then again, there's a lot about death, ego-puncturing and changing worldviews in those stories, too...) Sometimes I think I haven't learned much this past year about slowing down. It still requires external factors a lot of the time -- an Act of God, if you will -- for me to just stop for a day or two and catch my breath. I still feel guilty lazing around all day. Then again, I'm in much better shape on this issue than I was last year. That's good enough for me.