I've got a piece of paper on the table next to my laptop: sideways, divided into three columns. One is headed "To do: urgent." One is "To do: before Toronto." The third is "To do: Toronto." After a day of catching up on emails (and, yes, going for a walk - the sneakers got their workout as did Matey the dog and as did I), I find myself dividing my commitments by two different axes: time, of course, but also space. Or perhaps time but also place. Or perhaps location is starting to stand in for time.
Hmm... either way, I've got long lists of things that I need to do: commitments I've made. I have things to review, things to respond to, things to organise, things to plan, things to teach, things to confirm, things to send out to other readers. Despite what I may have been accused of at times, I really don't think anyone could read these lists and blame me for being scared of commitment!
As I look through the lists with the luxury of the past few days of rest and reconnection with Auntie Nanie and Mum, plus energy from already finding such amazing things in the archives, I find myself seeing these 'to do' items not merely as a daunting parade of threatening tasks to be slaughtered one by one before they drown me in their collective quicksand, but more as a series of nodes or intersections which make visible my connections to other people. Sure, it sounds cheesy, but I'm pleased that my sabbatical seems to be giving me the opportunity to look in a way which sees each of these 'tasks' as an opportunity to connect: with students, readers, writers, family, friends, people I have never met in person, people I will never know.
Some days this job feels like a dizzying isolating whirr of a machine... but this evening it feels more like a series of connections, of links.
Taking a few minutes to write this post before I hop into bed doesn't technically cross anything else off the list - but it has helped me think about the reasons - the real reasons - the deeper reasons - I will wake up in the morning to make a cuppa and get onto the next 'task' at hand.
(Right after I've taken the new sneakers for another spin, of course.)
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