Letter to My Children: X Days

“Momma, why do you have big Xs in your book?” Looking up from her morning granola, Bean’s gesticulated with her spoon toward my open calendar book.

“Ah ha, those are my favorite days. Those are the days where I am not allowed to schedule anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if I want time and space to focus and work on my own projects it is really difficult for me to do that if the day is carved into appointments all day long. It is really easy for your mother to fill my day with doings if I didn’t write big Xs in my book.” I flipped back to a week before school started. “See how this week, every day is filled with doings? Party, doctor appointment, friend call, another doctor appointment…”

“But why a big X?”

“That way, I have to think twice before putting something in that day because I know I am sacrificing a day of Corinna creativity… it better be worth it!”

This year I am making a concerted effort to give myself space to create (on the land, on the page, in the ether) and the biggest gift I have found for that creativity are blocks of unscheduled time. Time where I have an unbroken chunk of 4-5 hours to listen to my intuition, my pencil notes of desire, and follow where She leads me.

Bean, we were talking recently about how to slow down time during moments you don’t want to ever stop. I will reiterate now what I told you then. The best way is to slow down and pay attention deliberately. To take a breath and focus. To create space in the moment by being present. The moment will be richer during and it will live in your heart memory after.

Those are what I am trying to do with these X days. To cultivate a new relationship of time for myself and flush out my cells from the infection of capitalism.

Thank you life for this time to exhale.

Thank you Universe for this glorious moment to watch the roar of the fire and settle into winter slowness.

Thank you for the joy of writing.

Thank you for the local library with its huge selection of glorious books. Books that teach, instruct, stretch, and thrill all parts of me. Thank you for books that sit on my shelves and tease and taunt with words unread and wanting to be reread. Thank you EL for the gift of Rick Rubin’s AMAZING book The Creative Act: A Way of Being. As Rubin says, “we’re not playing to win, we’re playing to play.”

Thank you for this opportunity to play.