“I begin to suspect that the world is divided not only into the happy and the unhappy, but into those who like happiness and those who, odd as it seems, really don’t.”
— C.S. Lewis
Absent in the Spring
Rereading Absent in the Spring (Agatha Christie writing as Mary Westmacott)
July 23, 2018
One of the things I like most about traveling is the
complete break from the usual routine. I almost always come back from a trip
refreshed and ready to make changes in my life…whether or not those changes
actually take place. Sometimes it takes leaving home to see myself more
clearly.
It can also be a little bit frightening.
Absent was one of Christie’s favorite books. She
completed it in three days straight, and wrote in her autobiography that it was
“one book that has satisfied me completely…. It was the picture of a woman with
a complete image of herself, of what she was, but about which she was
completely mistaken…. What brought about this revelation would be the fact that
for the first time in her life she was alone—completely alone—for four or five
days.”
In the book, self-satisfied, middle-aged Englishwoman Joan
Scudamore finds herself stranded at a rest house in the desert on her way home
from visiting her daughter in Iraq. There are no other travelers for company,
she runs out of things to read, uses up her writing paper, and has no sewing or
handiwork to occupy her. She’s left with nothing to do but think and remember.
At first, this makes her uneasy:
“The truth was, she reflected, that she had always led such a full and occupied life. So much interest in it. It was a civilized life. And if you had all that balance and proportion in your life, it certainly left you rather at a loss when you were faced with the barren uselessness of doing nothing at all. The more useful and cultured a woman you were, the more difficult it made it.”
And then downright frightened, as her thoughts take her
places she’d rather not go.
“There was nothing to be afraid of in being alone—nothing at all.”
Eventually, she comes to see herself as she really is, not
as she’s told herself she is all her life.
“She had got to know, once and for all, just what kind of a woman Joan Scudamore was….”
The title comes from a line in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 98,
“From you have I been absent in the spring.”
One of Joan’s realizations is that even though she really loves her
husband, she’s been “absent” from him in the ways that really matter.
When Joan returns to England, will she keep her hard-won
self-knowledge and make changes? Or will she return to her old ways? I won’t
spoil the end for you—you’ll have to read it for yourself.
Absent in the Spring was written in the 1940s, but
anyone whose life is overfull with commitments, social media, and general
busy-ness might recognize in themselves the tendency to fill up time with doing
in order to avoid uncomfortable thinking.
“Happiness is primarily about cultivating your inner life,
instead of trying to influence your external life…. Even if you can control
most things, controlling everything is impossible. So the best route to
happiness is not trying to control your surroundings, but to control what is
happening inside you. If you can control your feelings, your emotions, and your
desires, you can be happy. It’s not what happens that makes you unhappy—it’s
your reaction to what happens.”
—Frederic Lenoir, “Be Aware of the Good Things Around
You,” A Book That Takes Its Time
Way back in 2010, when I first read
Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project, I seized on the concept of Rules
of Adulthood. At that time, mine included:
- There is time enough
- Live joyfully
- Be Kathy
- Put on your big girl panties and deal with it
- Pause before you say no
- It is what it is
- Rise to the occasion
- I am enough
- Slow down—faster isn’t better
- Progress, not perfection
- Help is everywhere
- What would I do if I wasn’t scared?
There’s been a lot of figurative
water under the bridge since then, including my turning 50—howisthatevenpossible?
Now that I’m, ahem, so mature, I've been toying with the idea of
revising my Rules of Adulthood for my new stage of life
(midlife-no-kids-at-home-but-not-quite-retired).
One of the issues I commonly deal
with now is worry about the future. As I get older, I see my parents and
in-laws aging and coping with various physical and emotional challenges. I
worry about losing my husband. About becoming ill myself. After Scout’s death
hit me hard, I worry about losing Tank, Prudy, and Luna, knowing that there's
no guarantee they will live the long life Scout did.
Milestones keep coming, but they’re
not fun ones like college, marriage, and starting a family. More like
colonoscopies, bereavement, and loss of physical vitality!
Wait, where was I?
Oh, yes, Rules of Adulthood. To
combat these worries, I some additions to my original Rules of Adulthood:
- Everything is figure-out-able (courtesy of Marie Forleo). Instead of stressing about what might (or might not) be ahead, believe that I’ll be able to figure it all out when the time comes.
- Life is not a competition.
- Be easy with yourself. After all these years, trust that you are a good and decent person, even when you make mistakes. (See next rule.)
- Everyone is doing the best they can--including you.
- Quality, not perfection. Perfection is unattainable, but you’re almost always able to live and work with quality.
- See the funny side. Because laughing is better than crying. Usually.
- Don’t immediately label things that happen to you as “good” or “bad”
It’s good to review the way we
think from time to time. As we age, ideally we’re becoming wiser, kinder
people. As we experience more, we learn to see other peoples’ points of view.
Maybe we soften, maybe we grow stronger. Life is a work in progress, and though
change is sometimes scary and hard, sometimes it’s just what we need.
Do you have Rules of Adulthood you live by? Please share in the comments!
 |
| Photo by Slava Bowman on Unsplash |
“In actuality, misery is a moment of suffering allowed to become everything. So, when feeling miserable, we must look wider than what hurts. When feeling a splinter, we must, while trying to remove it, remember there is a body that is not splinter, and a spirit that is not splinter, and a world that is not splinter.”
—Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening
Last week, while I participated in Laura Vanderkam’s Daily Vacation Challenge, I:
- Did a crossword puzzle
- Spent time with Tank
- Read a book
- Watched a movie without doing anything else at the same time
What I learned surprised me:
I already do these things, with the exception of the movie,
every week. It seems I’m good at scheduling simple pleasures, but not so good
at savoring them while they’re occurring. Which means I’m not so good at
remembering that I’ve indulged in a simple pleasure. I rush through even
pleasurable things to get to the next thing, which leaves me feeling
stressed and grumpy. I’m still fighting the busy fight.
I don’t properly appreciate the many lovely things in my
life. I don’t fully savor them, or reflect on them later.
I’m embarrassed by how much I complain about my perceived
challenges and how ungrateful I’ve been. I hope—no, I plan—to change this. I
started 2018 with a gratitude practice—writing down three things I was grateful
for every day. I stopped doing that a couple of months ago, and I’m going to
pick it up again. (I’ve been having some issues with depression again, and I
wonder if this would help? Couldn’t hurt.)
I didn’t expect to learn these things about myself—but I’m
glad I did. This coming week, a non-vacation week, I’ll still indulge in some
of my favorite simple pleasures, and I’m keeping a time log, so I’ll have a
place to record those daily breaks. My goal is to slow down enough to actually
appreciate them while they’re happening. I’ll dust off my gratitude journal and
bite my tongue when I start to complain.
Did you participate in the Daily Vacation Challenge?
What were your favorite mini-breaks? Did you learn any unexpected lessons?
Please share in the comments below!
 |
| Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash |
“Summer is a period
of luxurious growth. To be in harmony with the atmosphere of summer, awaken
early in the morning and reach to the sun for nourishment to flourish as the
gardens do. Work, play, travel, be joyful, and grow into selfless service. The
bounty of the outside world enters and enlivens us.”
—Paul Pitchford
 |
| Photo by Mohamed Ajufaan on Unsplash |
My husband is taking some time off work this week, so I’ll be doing the same. (That means I’m going to try to accomplish in two days what it usually takes me five days to do—wish me luck!) Also, as luck would have it, starting today I’m joining Laura Vanderkam’s Daily Vacation Challenge. The idea of the Daily Vacation is something she learned about while researching her new book, Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done, which I’ve requested from the library but haven’t read yet.
The Daily Vacation is simply planning 15 minutes of doing
something you know you’ll enjoy each day. Laura writes: “Each day for one week,
you anticipate your daily vacation. You try to slow down during it, and really
notice all your senses. You think of how you might describe this pleasure to
someone. Afterwards, you make a note of it somewhere, to help cement the
memory. Then you look forward to your
next vacation.”
I’m in! I’ll be sharing my daily vacations on Instagram
(follow me here if you don’t already)—and maybe I’ll do a round-up of how it
went next Monday, if it seems appropriate. You can share your daily vacations
with Laura by commenting on her blog post linked above, or by tagging her or
using #offtheclock on social media. I’m sure she’d love to hear what you you’re
up to!
And so would I—what simple pleasures will you enjoy this
week?
“We are buried
beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge;
quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness….”
—Tom Waits
Today is Take Your Dog to Work Day, and while I tried to
convince my husband to take Luna to the office with him, he declined. Since I
work at home, every day is Take Your Dog to Work Day for me, and while that has
its drawbacks, overall I love being able to take a break for cuddle time with
either Luna or Prudy, my other fuzzy office mate.
For many, myself included, pets are a lasting source of
happiness and simple pleasures. In honor of the dog in my life, here are a few
quotes about how dogs and happiness:
“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don’t know evil or
jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon
is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring — it was peace.”
—Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
“When we adopt a dog or any pet, we know it is going to end
with us having to say goodbye, but we still do it. And we do it for a very good
reason: They bring so much joy and optimism and happiness. They attack every
moment of every day with that attitude.”
—W. Bruce Cameron
“Animals have come to mean so much in our lives. We live in
a fragmented and disconnected culture. Politics are ugly, religion is
struggling, technology is stressful, and the economy is unfortunate. What's one
thing that we have in our lives that we can depend on? A dog or a cat loving us
unconditionally, every day, very faithfully.”
—Jon Katz
“My idea of absolute happiness is to be in bed on a rainy
day, with my blankie, my cat, and my dog.”
—Anne Lamott
(Sounds good to me!)
“Because of the dog's joyfulness, our own is increased. It
is no small gift. It is not the least reason why we should honor as love the
dog of our own life, and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet
born.”
—Mary Oliver
Happy Friday, everyone—and if you have a dog, cat, or other
animal companion, give them a little extra love today.
*Charles M. Schulz, Peanuts
Now and then I dip into the Catching Happiness archives and share a post from the past. I hope you enjoy this one, from 2012.
 |
| Caryatid Porch of the Erechtheion, Athens |
I recently completed Laure Ferlita’s online art class, An Imaginary Trip to Greece
Evaluate. Just as an artist evaluates his or her subject to find its most pleasing aspect or determine what is sketchable in the time available, you can evaluate your life to see how it's running. What feels good and bad, how you’re measuring up to your standards, how you’re progressing toward your goals. Taking stock of the who, what, when, where and why of life. In stopping to evaluate, you bring awareness to your life instead of drifting (or charging) around mindlessly.
Eliminate. On location, once you’ve chosen your subject, you want to eliminate anything that doesn’t significantly add to the sketch. You simply won’t have time to get every detail down on paper, so choose your details wisely. In the same way, life is short! After you evaluate it, you might decide you have some things to get rid of. Maybe literally, like that closet of items you want to donate to charity or a stack of old magazines and catalogs you’ll never get around to reading. Maybe it’s a chore or other commitment that has outlived its usefulness. It might even be a person who drags you down every time you’re together. What can you get rid of to make your life better?
Edit. In sketching and life, once you’ve decided what you want to focus on and what you want to eliminate, what’s left? Maybe you don’t want to eliminate something all together, but you can pare it down or simplify it.
Exaggerate. In class, Laure advises students to “use your creative license to exaggerate the elements to make it a great piece of art.” In sketching, that might mean darkening the values, or adjusting the direction of the light hitting your subject to make a more interesting composition. To translate this into life, choose to focus on, encourage and support the positive.
Embelish. The fun part! In art, this is where you add your own style to your sketch. In life, this is where you find ways to make it more beautiful—buy the fresh flowers, eat the chocolate, go see that movie, play, concert or sporting event that interests you. Life should be more than a list of chores and responsibilities.
Just as Laure’s five E’s make sketching on location easier and more fun by giving me a framework to help me choose a subject and execute a sketch, using the five E’s as a framework for living helps me feel like an artist in my own life. (And thank you to Laure for introducing me to these principles in art and in life!)
Do you have any principles that help you lead a happier, more artful life?
.jpg)
