On Thanksgiving: 10 Things to be Thankful For if You're a Procrastinator

Everything, it seems, is political these days.  The internet is awash with advice on how to avoid political wrangling at our holiday tables; how to eat ethically; and why we should opt out of a politically incorrect celebration of our vanquishing of a native people.  Here in Wisconsin, people are using the occasion of the holiday to recommend the removal of the "biggest turkey of all"--our governor.

But whatever our stance on Thanksgiving, the holiday, it can serve as a reminder to be grateful for all that we have.  So whether we are preparing a feast (with or without meat; organic or not) or a TV dinner; suffering relatives or other fools, or dining alone; eating out or in; or boycotting the whole turkey day thing--we can take a moment to appreciate the good things in our lives.

If we are procrastinators, we may be late (for Thanksgiving, or whatever else we are doing today), but we do have some "gifts" that are all our very own.

Ten Things to be Thankful For If You're a Procrastinator:

1. The long-suffering friends, family and coworkers who love us anyway
2. The "procrastination industry"--all those writers, researchers, bloggers, therapists, coaches and consultants who are hell-bent on improving us
3. All the cool t-shirts, mugs, hats, mouse pads, refrigerator magnets and other paraphernalia that make light of our condition, and allow us to announce it to the world
4. The time we can spend smelling the roses when we're putting off something else
5. Fast food, microwaves, express lines, all night copy shops, and all those other cheats that aid us in our last-minute dashes
6. The luxury we allow ourselves to complete no project before its time
7. The good company we're in
8. Always having something to do, by virtue of never having finished so many things
9. Not having a worse affliction/character flaw
10. Tomorrow

Rather than wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving, my wish is for you to Be Happy, and Give Thanks!

Cheers!

Done for the Week: Up to My Ears in Eggnog

Another Christmas come and gone.  Another solstice/full moon/lunar eclipse, the last of which was 372 years ago, put to bed.  Something about these infrequent events makes us feel the passage of time.  But living our lives intentionally, I think, is the only antidote to the regret that can wash over us as the year comes to a close.  As Marie Beynon Ray says,

We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand ... and melting like a snowflake. Let us use it before it is too late.

Here's how I used my moments last week:

Done for the Week:  Dec. 20-26

1. Continued off-season race training; biked three times 
2. Succeeded in getting husband to gym with me once
3. Finished The Groves of Academe, by Mary McCarthy
4. Continued reading The Zen Path Through Depression, by Philip Martin and continued adding to my library stockpile
5. Took week off from supporting transitioning nonprofit
6. Worked my two part-time jobs, with more hours due to holiday week schedule
7. Published 5 blog posts
8. Wrote 7 Gratitude Journal entries
9. Wrote 3 Morning Pages
10. Meditated 5 times
11. Got electrician back to install re-ordered wall oven
12. Marked the once-in-many-persons'-lifetimes confluence of the solstice, a full moon, and a lunar eclipse by sleeping through the night (It was cloudy here, anyway.)
13. Purchased new bathroom lights,  spoke with electrician about post-Christmas installation
14. Watched our two favorite basketball teams play 4 games, with son and husband
15. Foraged for food at the grocery store several times
16. Attended two yoga classes
17. Survived spouse's return after four-week absence
18. Walked my dog three times, including Christmas Day family trip to the dog park 
19. Gave significant but subtle support to two teenage sons stalled on the "launchpad" 
20. Finished Christmas shopping, and facilitating kids' shopping, by late Christmas Eve
21. Spent happy, peaceful Christmas day with my household members
22. Had enjoyable Christmas dinner and gift exchange at my daughter's
23. Participated in traditional family day-after-Christmas bookstore venture, with gift cards and 20% off!
24. Reconvened my meditation sangha, after two week hiatus

Again last week, my focus goal was to "put first things, if not first, at least earlier in the day. . .  and to figure out what those first things might be, on any given day."   At the present time,  blogging, meditating, exercising and adhering to my novel-writing schedule constitute this category of "first things" on most days.   My related achievements are highlighted in green, and again reflect progress over the previous week.  I made a particular effort to step up my meditation, motivated by the increased stress of the holiday week.  Conspicuously absent from the list, for the third week in a row, is any time spent on writing my novel.  The disruption of schedules which comes with annual celebrations and preparations for same wreaked havoc with my authorial commitment.  

This coming week is another of those non routine times that I find so challenging, to my psyche as well as to my overall productivity.  My step-daughter and her family are in town, my grandson is still off preschool, my professor husband is between semesters, and my teenaged sons are still without jobs, and imposed structure.  For this week, I renew my resolve to post five blogs, exercise four times, meditate six times, and make the time to resume writing the novel--before I forget what it's supposed to be about.

The most important "accomplishment" of the past week was unequivocally the wonderful Christmas Day spent with my family.  Over the years, we have had our share of difficult holidays.  In our large and insufficiently blended family, crises often erupted on or around these emotion-fraught occasions.  We were slow to learn the lesson of lowered expectation amidst the Hallmark hype.  And some of us were not especially mature, as is the way of childhood--and parenthood.  But this year, everyone in our small household stepped up their game, showing love and thoughtfulness and generosity and gratitude and grace under fire.  It was a joy to be the mother and the wife of these men I live with.  With or without the trappings, it is this gift I would wish to keep always.

Stopping for Magic

Turns out Christmas will come anyway, despite whatever balls (and keepsake ornaments) we may have dropped in these days leading up to it.  It won't be perfect.  But it will happen.  And as it so often does in movies and song, the magic we attribute to this time will heighten feelings and experience.


As I write this, my extended family is celebrating a new baby, born yesterday.  A distant friend is posting updates on Facebook from labor and delivery, having survived the last harrowing weeks of an over-40 pregnancy--too much like my own last incubation. 


A friend is mourning her son, not two months dead.  My husband awoke at 5 a.m. this morning, thinking of his father who died on Christmas Eve, decades ago.  And I am missing my dad, more this year than before.


My husband is home.  Our tree is up.  The last late-night online shopping delivery has arrived. My children have graduated from passive holiday audience to fellow makers of the occasion, contributing their outdoor lighting skills, and their thoughtful gift-giving, hatchet-burying and culinary talents.


In true procrastinator fashion, I will join my husband shortly in planning tomorrow's menu and making up one last shopping list, before heading out to the grocery store to join the throngs.  


But in this moment, I want to breathe and to, in my yoga teacher's class-closing words, "fill [myself] up with gratitude for all that [I] have, and all that is yet to come."


Whatever our traditions, and in the most universal sense, 
Merry Christmas!

Some Things I'm Thankful I Didn't Put Off

I have better things to do today than prattle on over the internet.  And for that, I am grateful.  


But because I am also appreciative of the gift that blogging has been to me this past year, I don't want to let the day go by without this brief post.


Here, then, is a short and nonexhaustive list of some things I treasure in my life, all of which came to me as a result of not procrastinating.  In fact, all involved rashness, or foolhardiness, or seizing the day.  (They are not, by the way, enumerated in order of importance, or affection. They are secretly alphabetical.)


1.  My oldest child, conceived inadvertently at the worst possible time, which turned out to be the best possible time, who has grown into my very good friend and the mother of my best, and only, grandchild.
2.  My youngest child, also inopportune, also precious, who turned my world on its ear in ways I can never regret, and whose gifts and struggles are so like my own.
3.  My partner in life, who brings magic, and pain, and friendship, and bad jokes, and intellectual companionship and strife, and a small hole in my heart when he's gone.
4.  My dog and roommate, whom I had no business bringing home to live with us just one week after his much-mourned predecessor died, and who makes me glad every day that I did.
5.  My middle child, who came to me like a lottery winning, in the most unlikely way, who has taught me a large part of what I know, and who continues to surprise me with his generous heart.


Life has blessed me, and in these instances I have managed not to get in its way.  And for that, I am grateful.

Change of Plans, Change of Heart

Today was going to be the one where I didn't run all over the place.  The day I caught up on rest, and cleaning, and reading and meditating.  


And then my oldest son came to me with a coat "emergency."  He needs a new coat, he really does.  One that isn't bleeding down feathers, making him look like he's molting.  But he needed it yesterday.  And he would still need it tomorrow and the day after that.  


There's only one place he wants to go for a new coat.  It's far away, from the perspective of wishing to stay close to my couch today.  And it sells the kind of coat that appeals to him, and not so much to me.  I want to say no to the proposed trek.  (I'd send him with money, but this purchase has to go on my credit card, which they probably wouldn't let him use at the store.  Even though I've pretty much nixed credit card usage, this month is an exception.  The check that will fund our planned-for extras is sitting in an envelope in a pile of unopened mail, its counter-signer half way around the world for another 26 days.)  I really want to say no.  And I could.


But this morning I made one of my random visits to Facebook, and learned that a friend of the last few years, since we shared a long and bumpy plane ride, just lost her son.  He was the same age, with the same name as my coat-seeker.  He, too, was once a towheaded toddler.  His mother and I had commiserated about the challenges of raising sons in 21st century America, and celebrated the moments of fun and closeness.  I don't know the details of his death, and I don't need to.  But the devastation is lodged in my heart.


So plans and preferences be damned.  I am so lucky that my son is here to need a coat.  And that I am here to pay for it.


From my friend's Facebook post--

Be kind to everyone, practice patience and tell the people you love how important they are. Your life, as you know it, can change in the blink of an eye.

Happy Thanksgiving!  I am off to the store.