Noticing the day move on

[image: Snow shovel by Tom Tucker, my husband]
I didn't notice the seasons of a day very much when I was working. How could you? I got up with an alarm clock, started coffee, rushed straight into an orgy of dressing and packing Tom's lunch, maybe planning dinner, rushing out the door like some river that had been let loose. It was of course important to be there at 8:00. Exactly. There was so much to think about - did your hose get a snag or run, did your shoes need polished, purse to match outfit (I'm talking the 1980s here). Rush, rush.

Once I got there I did notice that I-I-Me settled into the morning, and that was pleasant. I did notice that I lost motivation to Accomplish Something around 3:00 p.m. It was not until the late 1990s that I got interested in Chinese medicine, which reflects the Taoist or Eastern way of understanding human beings in our place in the cosmos. (For those who want to know, according to Chinese astrology I was born in the year of the horse, and at the time of day that is horse, but on the very cusp of becoming sheep. And in the season of water. Absolutely the profile of an artist.)

TCM - Traditional Chinese Medicine - believes that the major organ systems of the body take turns governing function. I always feel 3:00 p.m. kick in. This is when governance goes to the kidneys, and I have a weird moment when my pixels are not arranged, then I am more tired. That's me, though, with major kidney problems.

I also notice the hours of fire. That's another aspect, the changes in our relationship to our sun, and the body's internal fire, which is highest between 11:00 and 1:00. I feel that. Sometimes I am writing like the dickens in that time. Starting 10:00 a.m. I often have an urge to get to work.

You get to feel these things when you retire. I didn't feel them years ago when I was out of work but full of Am-bitions. At one point over the holidays someone wished sincerely that I would have that get up and go, hit the ground running - like that. That's her idea of good health, not mine. I like to be on the ground walking, paying attention to every step, heel-toe. This morning I woke up to a couple of inches of snow, and I want to walk down to the end of the street and back, just walking. I love to do that.

To feel how you are during the day, you have to be in this moment, this body, not stretching out to catch the golden ring. But many of us are really ill at ease when we don't know what our goal is. We might call that "having nothing to do."

I had a modest goal over the holidays, preparing for our Open House, and some subgoals, gifts to make. Now I am just me, finishing the second cup of decaf, noticing the day rise in me, about to meditate. I think you can do this noticing when you work, but it must be very hard.