Guest WOOF blogger, Patricia Harman gives Five Reasons to
lie in a hammock instead of getting to work.
1. The hammock is lonely.
First of all, you didn’t even put the new brown and white striped canvas hammock up until August. You were too busy taking care of your family, weeding the garden, freezing the produce and working for the money to pay the bills.
All August and September the hammock swayed in the breeze, getting rained on and drying out. It waves you and you wave back, but you are too busy on your way somewhere else to stop for a swing. The hammock is more of a backyard ornament than anything functional and it hasn’t had a visitor for two weeks.
2. The sun is shining and winter is limping this way.
How many such nice fall days are left? Already the temperature has been in the 40s at night and soon you will have to bring the potted plants in. Trees are already turning red or orange along the freeway. The hummingbirds no longer come to the feeder and a week ago you saw the first V of geese heading south.
3. “All work and no play makes Jack and dull boy.”
I tell my patients they need more time for themselves, time to dream, to rest, to recharge but I don’t follow my own sage advice.
Shouldn’t I be out saving the world? I get 30 or 100 emails a day, informing me about an event I should attend, a letter of protest I should write, or a cause I should support. Most I delete with vague sense of guilt.
When I do stop to smell the roses it’s for only a few minutes. I stand on the side porch looking up at the sky then I notice the trees that need pruning or wonder if our five Ash trees will be killed by the epidemic of deadly Ash Borers.
4. “The project you are working on isn’t going disappear.”
Ok, so you spend 30 minutes in totally useless activity, watching the clouds fly over and the leaves twinkle in the wind. With one foot drooped over the edge you swing your self back and forth and remember being rocked in the arms of someone who loved you. You close your eyes and hear vehicles in the distance, a blue jay squawking, a door slam, a crow caw, a dog bark and another one, across the road, answer….what has been lost, nothing, but time. What has been gained, lowering of the blood pressure, slowing of the pulse, inspiration, images to store away for the book you will write someday.
5. Inspiration may come to you. As you lie under the trees, staring at the
white puffs of clouds sailing above you, your next creative insight may come to
you, a problem may be solved or a prayer may be answered.
See, you were not wasting time.
See, you were not wasting time.
Patrica Harman CNM MS is a midwife and author
of two critically aclaimed books, Arms
Wide Open: A Midwife's Journey and The Blue Cotton Gown (both by Beacon Press). Arms Wide Open, (April 2011) goes back to the
1970s when Harman lived in rural communes, fought against the War in Vietnam,
did home-births and chased bears away from the door of her log cabin. It's a saga of innocence, loss and hope that
we can all relate to. Harman lives and
works in Morgantown WV, with her husband OB/Gyn Tom Harman. They have three grown boys and four
grandkids.
To read more about the
author and her books go to www.patriciaharman.com
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