Count down

I've had some lulls this summer in which for the first time in a while I have had a chance to "while away the hours conferring with the flowers" so to speak. It's been an interesting adjustment to move from fast to slower and to reckon with all of the clicking and clacking going on in my head. One thing that I have mulled over is my own tendency to count down. I don't know when this habit started or why (and I suspect I am not alone in it) but it seems that everything is a measurable moment away... work project end date (1 more day), leaving for Wyoming (2 days), seeing Uli (2 days), guests arriving (10 days), summer festivities (11 days), days left of singledom (12 days), honeymoon (20 days), beginning of school (1.5 months), fall teachers' conference (3 months), Christmas trip to Germany (5.5 months), New Year's in Estonia (6 months)... and there is a never-ending stream of micro- and macro-cosmic events to string along until the point at which I am completely and totally insane.

A great illustration of this mentality happened when I was finishing up my Peace Corps service in Slovakia. As I finished my 27 months in Stara Tura, I was itching to move on from small, isolated village life to the next new step. Pondering the future -- the ability to communicate frequently with family and friends, being able to navigate life in my own language, socializing with other young people -- I itched for getting there. Even though I had mixed feelings about leaving my students and the local friendships made, I focused on the "next" part.

Young Slovak men are obligated to serve in their country's military and most of them serve because they have to not because they want to. It's seen as a sort of inconvenient pit stop along their path to growing up and moving on with their lives. While I was there, I was told that many men buy measuring tapes (the kind that a seamstress uses) and for the last 100 days of their service they cut of a centimeter each day, creating a visual representation of the time until they can return to normal civilian life.

Upon hearing of this custom, I took it on as my own. I hung 100 centimeters in my kitchen and ceremoniously took a bit off each day. At first, it was exciting to realize that I was almost finished with what had been an enlightening and educational time in a small town. Culture shock. Teaching shock. Language shock. I-have-too-much-time-on-my-hands-and-don't-know-what-to-do-with-it shock. I spent days in my room in the dorm talking to no one else but myself, watching movies in Czech, learning to cook soup, taking nature walks with my neighbor Betka, and just figuring out how to get by in a funny place. Don't get me wrong. There were some great moments but even the most enriching experiences can be isolating. Anyway. I took on this system of cutting off centimeters, and my life began to revolve around the next moments and lost focus on the ones that were in the here and now. In retrospect, I am not sure it was a very good system at all.

This summer has been odd in itself for very different reasons. My teaching contract was canceled at the last minute and instead of an overwhelming teaching load with the social life of my students and co-teachers to busy my mind and distract my heart, I was left with an overwhelming and solitary project leading up to the much-anticipated summer events. I don't bemoan the project and am not complaining about the work, but I've had a lot of time alone and a lot of time for thinking. My inclination has been to count everything down, but I begin to doubt the wisdom of this orientation.

When you are getting married, everyone's first question is "how are the plans going"... This innocently starts six months before the event and increases with frequency as the date nears. Uncanny this habit. I haven't been the perkiest of brides, I guess. I just don't know how to mitigate the whole process. The proposition of marrying my best friend is beyond enticing and comforts me with the knowledge that all of those big "what ifs?" will be tackled in good humor and with excellent company. The idea of a wedding with all of the expectations and adornments is also abstractly fun and exciting but it also induces a sort of potent anxiety over doing things right and making everyone happy. You feel from the very first moment that your whole life has been engaged in a countdown to one big day and one big event, and you begin to distractedly lose those small days and small events and small moments that happen in between.

And, this is probably just as it should be, but I've begun to wonder about all of those moments leading up to the Moment. What was I doing 100 days before I left Stara Tura that was somehow shadowed by day 0? What do we do to ourselves when we constantly concentrate and what will be instead of what is? Is it an American thing to be so intent on future happenings at the risk of losing the present? Why is it so hard to sit back and just let things be? Why does it induce so much guilt to just be still in midst of madness?

I have tried some resolutions this summer --

I've read a daily dose of poetry (good for the soul)
I've been meeting new people through varieties of outdoor hiking in the area (good for the social)
I've been taking in foreign films (good for the mind)
I've been working like a banshee trying to finish a colossal work task (good for the pocketbook)
I've been biking and running and eating fresh veggies (good for the body)

and I've just been trying to adjust to a bit of limbo and get by and I've realized that counting things down is of no use. I lose sleep over things I can't do and people I can't help and situations I can't change.

So, in a period of my life which is full of countdowns, I am scorning my abilities in simple mathematics and consciously trying to just enjoy today for what it is, yesterday for what it was, and tomorrow for what it will be ... and incoherent rambles for exactly what they are.



"Like people or dogs, each day is unique and has its own personality quirks which can easily be seen if you look closely." ~ Tom Hennen, The Life of a Day