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 #12: August 19, 2016

Learning to Let Go

Not-so-secret admission: I’m a bit of a control freak. Nowhere is this more evident than in the relationships closest to me. My friendly ex-husband came to my housewarming party recently, and when I dispatched him to the liquor store mid-festivities to grab another bottle of something, he joked as he went, “We’re not even married anymore and she’s still ordering me around.” That kind of thing doesn’t sit quite as well with my new partner, and because I recognize that it’s not a healthy tendency in its extreme, I’m continually working on reining it in more appropriately with him. (I guess the idea of “reining in” your controlling tendency is like a reverse-oxymoron or something, but that’s the metaphor that first came to me. Go figure.)

Anyway, it’s something I’m working on, and it’s been a good process, an important process for me, learning to be more flexible and go with the flow. There are still occasional flare-ups as we learn to live together in our new home – and in fact we had one this past week – but progress is ongoing and I’m slowly finding the freedom and peacefulness that letting go of control and cultivating flexibility can offer. Because of course nobody’s ever really in control of much, if anything, when it comes right down to it; and clinging too doggedly to that pursuit is an exercise in futility.

So I was pleased that this Bifocal Friday found me pleasantly going with the flow. I’d planned to enjoy another beach afternoon with my 14 year-old and his buddies and their moms, but the weather was bad. I thought maybe bowling instead, but if there’s one thing you really can’t control it’s the will of a bunch of a teenagers. The prevailing choice of the boys was to go trampolining at SkyZone and then see the Bourne movie by themselves, so off they went. There was a loose Plan B afoot for the moms to have lunch or happy hour later in the afternoon by ourselves, but that was a little slow to materialize and I didn’t mind the unscheduled time to putter around the house cleaning a bit and reading my book while the rain fell.

By 3:00 there were three of us mom friends who were ready to converge, and I drove over to Salut on Grand Avenue to meet them. The rain had lifted, and we were able to sit outside on the patio and enjoy each other’s company along with some good pomme frites and a pint. It was a great couple of hours of conversation, in which new and deeper layers of each other’s personal onions were revealed and discussed between us, taking these relatively new friendships to yet another level.

After lunch, I met Drew for a short round of golf that was cut even shorter by another round of rain. My drive was solid, although my short game peskier than ever, and overall I was slightly hindered by the fact that I’d forgotten my golf shoes and was wearing a pair of rubber sandals. But the whole thing was enjoyable while it lasted, and we got a rain check out of the deal so it was essentially a free round of golf.

Casting about for something else to do with our rainy evening, we grabbed my older son and the three of us headed out to the neighborhood movie theater to see “Florence Foster Jenkins,” which delighted us all. I don't often get to spend a Friday night with my almost 18-year old, so that was an added bonus. I have to admit, staying in the moment and letting go cheerfully of original plans led to a day of unexpected fun. 
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