You know it’s hot when…

The spring session at the therapeutic riding barn ended this week with a couple of very hot days. When that happens, we offer unmounted lessons, but many participants simply choose to stay home. The barn is not air conditioned, and neither people nor animals are acclimated to the heat yet.

I had some barn-related errands to run, so I decided to make the trip even though I wasn’t strictly needed on premises yesterday. Got in the car, cranked up the AC, tooled on over the mountain and across the valley. Such a pretty day, despite the heat.

And that attitude is not normal for me. Usually, when I drive that route, I am aware that it’s pretty countryside, but I’m also a little tense, fretting over the clock, over what I’ll teach, over the exertion of trudging around a hot (or cold) indoor arena for miles. I’m trying to make every excursion count, but days at the barn are long and tacking to-dos and errands on top of the outing can get to be too much.

I was stunned by what a different drive it was when I had nothing of any significance on my agenda. Just pretty country roads, the corn coming along (“knee high by the Fourth of July”), the winter wheat ready to come off, the alfalfa looking good… la-la-la-la…

Which led me to realize that my schedule this year has had no designated Sabbath. I don’t mean a dress up and go to church day (though that has value for many people, I know), I mean a day that reliably isn’t volunteering, authoring, house-wrangling, or to-doing. A day to sleep in, wear my play clothes, schedule nothing and nobody.

I know better. I know the writing improves for being regularly paused. That ideas need time to marinate, and that I’ve never done first rate work on a tight deadline. The notion that volunteering is a break from writing, and writing is nice quiet counterbalance to volunteering doesn’t hold as much water I’d anticipated.

A change is not as good as a rest. Hmm.

Without breaks, I get to hamster-wheeling, walking in the door and seeing all the chores I skipped to put in a long day in the riding arena. My commutes are full of blurb polishing, dramatic arc plotting, and lesson plan reviews. My writing is not the all absorbing joy I know it can be.

So this is me, cutting back at the barn to two days a week at least for summer. That was hard–they need the help, I am competent to provide it, it’s just for a couple months! But I did it, and somehow, the barn is still standing. I will again put the blog on hiatus for July (have great vacays, everybody!) This is also me, spending a day up at Deep Creek Lake with an old friend. We will just hang out and eat and drink slightly irresponsibly.

And I am trying on Take a Breather Tuesdays. Might have to shift that around some, but the reality is, if I don’t choose and indulge in a flaps down day, then I end up with days that “get away from me,” scenes I have to chuck or heavily re-write, and a commute spent fretting instead of appreciating nature’s glory.

Phooey on that. I’m going to impersonate me some lilies of the field. When and how do you Sabbath?