I didn’t sleep well last night, so when I did wake up, late, at 9.30am, my first thought was, What’s wrong with you? You’re so lazy. Now you’ll have to start work right away.
I live in a quiet national park in the Canadian Rockies, and work from home as an editor for a travel site for young people. By getting up two hours later than intended, I’d cut out all my pre-work time where – on a good day – I get up and tootle around, drink tea, then go for a walk past the waterfall by the tiny cabin I rent, along the river and out to the nearby lake. Maybe I’ll even try to meditate for a bit (I say ‘try’ because my mind is a crazy monkey being chased by a scorpion even before 9am, even when it hasn’t been near a screen for 8+ hours…I disappoint myself all the time).
Back at the cabin after my walk, I’ll make some porridge then eat it in the chair by the window so I can watch the squirrels and magpies. I’m basically 28 going on 82. I’m not sad about that.
Anyway, my window for calm and stillness had been snatched away by a night of insomnia, and now there was no time for me. Work would fill the next 8 hours, and it’d be dark by the time I’d sent my last email.
My tired body felt terrible, like a kid had been playing the board game Operation with my body parts in the night, so I didn’t much care that I’d be going straight to Internet’s teet instead of outside. Outside sounded like too much work.
Then on the way to the bathroom to brush my teeth, I saw some mule deer out the window. One, two, three…a dozen mule deer eating the crinkled leaves in the yard and up the hill behind the cabin.
Oh, I thought, work can wait.
I wrapped myself up in a blanket, sat cross-legged by the glass door at the back of the house, and watched them. One of the females came so close to the glass that I could see the whiskers around her mouth. I didn’t know mule deer had whiskers till today. For half an hour the deer stayed in the garden; I didn’t move except to make a cup of tea and to grab a notepad and pen so I could try to draw them (I don’t have a phone or a camera or Instagram because I know I’d disappoint myself with how easily addicted I’d be to all those things).
Those deer were a reminder that I should always find time for me, a reminder that it is never a bad thing to just sit and watch the world. What’s outside will always be more interesting and important than the images and sounds a screen can conjure up.
When the mule deer left, I said to myself, What’s five more minutes away from the screen?
I chucked on some jogging bottoms and a jacket and took a short walk to the waterfall and back.
Instead of starting work at 9.30am, I started an hour later. There had been no work emergencies in my short absence. The world had kept spinning.
Funny that.
Ailsa spot on! This post really gave me some persepctive to my work as a freelancer. Thanks for sharing this experience.
Ps. I didn’t know mule deers had whiskers either.
Welcome, Maddy. Really enjoying your Argentina-based articles right now 🙂