Setting My Clock

“Redeeming the time because the days are evil.” I believe I was asked to memorize that verse three times as a kid. I liked it because it was straightforward and easy to remember. I also have a deep-seated instinct to fill in nooks and crannies of all kinds, and this verse is an open invitation to do what I love. I wish I would have understood that way back when.

I had the great honor to have been born a woman. I’ve always loved my gender even though it meant a lot of doors were closed for me, closed so firmly they didn’t seem to exist. Doors of leadership, doors to professional work, doors to achievement, were all if not outright denied were hidden, buried under rhetoric and dogma. Every day I make new discoveries about how wrong that ancient way of thinking is and also how much I can truly do. My given agenda, anchored in the house with my children is giving way to my inner longings that have been so long denied. As they grow up and leave me this life I couldn’t have is becoming possible. I suppose it was always possible, but it didn’t seem that way to me.

Thanks to Haruki Murakami I have learned to respect my work and the time it takes. I’m meeting goals as a novelist and as the creator of curriculum. My mindset that those pursuits were for my “spare time” is flipping as the time in my office is becoming my true work. No, I’m not getting up at five, but I am using time to meet my agenda, and that’s a new gift. Around it are coming other priorities that were squelched by someone else who didn’t know or understand me. Saturday is for odds and ends work. Sunday is for rest. I haven’t figured it out yet, but I’d like to go to church more. I need a day where pizza is guaranteed. The discoveries are numerous and fun.