WELCOME TO BIFOCAL FRIDAYS

I recently started a new job in a formal business setting after 20 years of working in a very independent environment. I absolutely love my new gig, but it does require a pretty unwavering commitment to a solid 9-5 schedule every day, with a generous but very structured vacation policy. I miss some of the flexibility I had before, to take a day or an afternoon or a few hours off at the drop of a hat.

So imagine my delight a few months into the job when I learned that we keep “Summer Hours” for the months of June, July and August. That means Friday afternoons entirely off. I felt like a kid in a candy store as I considered the unexpected gift of this special time suddenly available to me.

It reminded me of one of my favorite childhood books, The Saturdays, by Elizabeth Enright, which I have read countless times. In 1940s New York City, the four fictional Melendy children lament that their weekly allowance of 50 cents each isn’t enough to do anything really good with. So they decide to pool their money, and one child will have it all each week in turn, to do something special for a Saturday adventure.

Ten year-old Randy gets to go first, because it was her idea. As she luxuriates in considering her options, she thinks she mustn’t waste a minute or a penny of it. “It was like a door opening into an enchanted country which nobody had ever seen before; all her own to do with as she liked.” This is how I felt about the idea of my Summer Hours. While mine wasn’t an issue of limited spending money, the idea of not wasting a single minute of it was paramount. So I made the decision to approach my Friday afternoons very intentionally, committed to making each one count in a unique and meaningful way, all summer long.

As the Melendy’s father said when he granted approval to their scheme, “See that you do something you really want; something you’ll always remember. Don’t waste your Saturdays on unimportant things.” I wouldn’t waste my precious Friday afternoons. I would do something wonderful (or at least notable) every week, and write about it here so I’d be accountable to the commitment and fully mindful of the adventure.

Of course not every Friday will pan out as some big amazing thing. Maybe one afternoon I will simply clean my house and revel in the fact that I have this lovely home with a new love who has given me a new lease on life in my 50s. Maybe one day I will simply weed the garden and think about life. But there’s plenty to be gotten from that as well.

“We lead a humdrum life when I think about it. It’s funny how it doesn’t seem humdrum,” said Randy Melendy over tea with an old family friend. Mrs. Oliphant replied, “That’s because you have ‘eyes the better to see with, my dear’ and ‘ears the better to hear with.’ Nobody who has them and uses them is likely to find life humdrum very often. Even when they have to use bifocal lenses, like me.”

Join me on my “Summer Hours: Bifocal Fridays” adventures. Maybe you’ll find something new to do with your special time, or just a new way of looking at things.

Friday #7: July 15, 2016

Blah, blah, blah

As I write, I’m feeling irritated about one of the small-but-cumulative irritations of being a parent. In this case, having to replace yet another lost cell phone. It was covered by insurance, so fortunately there’s only a $50 replacement fee, and fortunately that’s not a fortune to me, and  in any case his next month’s allowance will be diverted to pay for it AGAIN. But there’s the time and irritation involved in a) watching him look all over the house for it for two days; b) suggesting new places for him to remember to look; c) asking the same unanswerable question that everybody’s mom asks (“Where was the last place you saw it?”) and d) spending my lunch hour today logging onto our account and seeing what’s what with the device, putting it on hold, filing a claim to replace it, blah, blah, blah. Oh, and e) since he’s without a phone, there’s no way for me to reach him while I’m at work, and he needs to know that it turns out he doesn’t have practice tonight so he needs to do such-and-so differently in terms of his logistics for the day, getting from point A to point B, connecting with people who aren’t going to be where he expects them to be, asking other people to see if they can find him around the house or around the neighborhood, which it turns out nobody can, blah, blah, blah.

Which, it turns out, is pretty much the soundtrack to being a parent: blah, blah, blah. I find myself saying the same things over and over again, all the time, and many days it feels like nobody is listening.

I’m reminded of somebody else’s child therapist whose one greatest piece of advice for the parents of her clients is to hand them a little white slip of a card that says simply “Stop talking.”

I’m also remembering what I did for this week’s Bifocal Friday adventure, which was to spend some one-on-one time with this same kid of mine.

It was the day before our big housewarming party, so I had errands to run and a million things to do. Rather than focusing on speed and efficiency, I figured since it was my Bifocal Friday I would add some extra fun to the chores by inviting my 14 year-old along since he had the day free himself. I always enjoy his company, and he seems to still enjoy mine most days, especially if there’s not another better alternative immediately available. 

We listen to pop music in the car and he sings along and fills in any current gaps in my musical compendium. We get sidetracked with a bad construction detour and he listens to me swear without judging. He makes me laugh with his dry wit. We knock an errand off my list that’s something I’ve been meaning to do for several years (a final bit of name-change documentation from my divorce) because it happens to be in the neighborhood of another errand we’re running and I happen to have the right paperwork with me finally. We stop by a friend’s house to pick up a load of high-top tables and metal ice bins for party drinks. He helps me load up the car cheerfully. We get him fitted for a good pair of running shoes, because he’s recently added running to his personal fitness routine. He kisses me and thanks me as we leave the store. And we sit across the restaurant table from each other over pancakes and sausage and talk. About my work, about his sports, about his brother looking at colleges and it making him wonder how you could ever decide where to go, and how to get in, and most importantly how to know what you want to do with your life.

I did less of the talking and more of the listening. And none of it felt like blah, blah, blah.
Posted by

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)