On Being Busy

Once again, I'm starting this post from the cookie crumb covered couch of Main Street Bagels. I'm seriously considering breaking my strict seating tradition and abandoning my familiar cushions for the less sweat inducing surface of a wooden chair. The air-conditioned coffee shop struggles mightily to cool itself, but can't hope to compete with the sweltering heat raging outside. I don't care to imagine what the employees must be suffering in the kitchen, as the steam from opening ovens full of cookies and muffins mingles with the heat of a Grand Junction summer to create an unintentional sauna.

The feeling of overall stickiness is nigh impossible to escape this time of year. The sun is harsh and the heat is fierce. Girls walk by in sleeveless, yellow summer dresses, relishing the feeling of wind and fabric between their legs. Business men are seen sporting unbecoming shorts, white, skinny calves and ankles glaring back at the intense sun. A middle-aged man has fallen asleep with his half-eaten bagel sandwich under one of the umbrellas outside. At least, I sincerely hope he's asleep. If he's fainted from the invasive, claustrophobic heat, I wouldn't be even a little surprised. This is the time of year in Western Colorado for flip-flops and shorts and sunglasses. This is the time to worry about dehydration and heat stroke. This is the time of early morning and late night hikes, as being outside at any other time of the day is terribly unpleasant. The only creatures that seem to relish these oppressive condition are the flies, and the whole lot of them are gleefully flitting about my sweaty shins as I write. It's been a couple of years since I last tap danced, but these opportunistic insects are providing excellent motivation for me to resume my dancing habits. If I keep my legs immobile for a full five seconds, I'm swarmed.

Shuffle, drawback, shuffle, falap ball change.

As I mentioned last week and directly alluded to in my title, I've become increasingly busy, as of late.

Sundays: Work at Hands Up Homes for Youth for 12 hours.
Mondays: Teach yoga for 75 minutes at Yoga West and work at Hands Up Homes for Youth for 8 hours.
Tuesdays: Teach yoga for 75 minutes at Yoga West and work at Hands Up Homes for Youth for 8 hours.
Wednesdays: Work at Hands Up Homes for Youth for 10 hours.
Thursdays: Teach yoga for an hour and prepare for our weekly dinner party
Fridays: Garden for 6 hours and teach yoga for two hours.
Saturdays: Teach yoga for 2 1/2 hours and garden for 1 hour.

A schedule like this gives me immense satisfaction when I write it down in my planner, but has the undesirable side-effect of turning me into a self-centered and pretentious prick in real life. I'm impatient and belittling and my reactions to the little things not going according to plan tend to be rather explosive. After a few hours of soul searching and a couple of unwarranted explosions at my befuddled boyfriend, I've discovered a few of the reasons why being busy might contribute to my overall nastiness.

Busyness, in and of itself, can be a marvelous aspect of life. I think humans are designed to desire to lead productive lives. I've been reading a book on homelessness lately (research for my next play), and I was intrigued to learn that the majority of homeless people will take work over welfare even if the welfare pays more than the work, the work disqualifies them for welfare and medical assistance, and they're still stuck living in shelters even though they work 40+ hours a week. Why do they do this?

"It's better than walking the streets."

People want to contribute. They want to find places in which they fit. They want to feel valuable and accomplished. Having a full schedule of working engagements fulfills our innate desire to be needed. We like to wake up in the morning and think, "I'm needed at nine o'clock. If I don't show up, people with notice. People will miss me."  A passage from Tell Them Who I Am: The Lives of Homeless Women that I found particularly poignant, stated, "Theirs is certainly not a struggle for the economic rewards of the work, nor even for the social or psychological rewards. Their needs are pre-social, elemental. They know they are in deep trouble, in danger of losing their sanity and their humanity, and they are struggling to hold on. It is as if the Louises and Dorothys (characters in the book) believe with Freud that "work is man's principal tie to reality," and they feel that tie slipping away.

Busyness, with the wrong attitude, can be a terribly destructive, dehumanizing aspect of life. The incorrect attitude can imbue you with an unhealthy dose of false superiority. You start viewing your time as even more precious than usual, and certainly more precious than the time of someone not nearly as busy as you. This leads to dehumanization of others and justification for a veritable slew of behaviors you deem inappropriate for less busy people, but you now allow yourself because --

I'm just so busy.

Behaviors include:

Not returning calls or emails.

Sorry I didn't return your call. I know it was important, but I was just too busy. 

Perpetually postponing showering.

I'm too busy this afternoon. *smell check* Yup, I can wait until tomorrow. 

 Speeding and reckless driving.

If only they knew how busy I am... they'd understand. JESUS! The light is green already! Hurry the f*ck up! Some of us have places to go. 
  
Leaving messes for others to clean up.

He's not that busy. He can just take care of it with his stuff. 
 
Losing your shit when forced to wait an extra two minutes.

Don't you know that I have things to do?

All of these behaviors are reprehensible in and of themselves, but add the superiority complex, and you have a first-rate asshole on your hands. This complex makes it easily justifiable to turn yourself into an antagonistic jerk, but makes it an atrocity against humanity (you) when someone else forgets to return your phone call.

Do they really think it's okay to force me to wait like this? Don't they know that I have plans to make? I can't just put my life on hold as I patiently wait for them to pick up the phone and get back to me.

Now, before this post results in me losing all of my wonderful friends, let me note that I haven't quite escalated to this impressive level of jerk. I just feel like that's the unhappy direction in which I'm heading, and am determined to nip this complex in the bud. I'm not prepared to quit any of my jobs yet, but I am prepared to be a bit more humble and quadruple my efforts on being aware and present. I am going to do my absolute best to never use my busyness to excuse my bad behavior. I am going to do my absolute best to treat the time of other people as an entity just as valuable as my own, regardless of how they use it. That's not my business.

All in all, I've concluded that I'm a much nicer person when I'm not busy, but I'm a much more productive and fulfilled person when I am. Hence, I'm going to treat myself like I do when I'm not busy and still maintain the schedule of a busy person. I'm hoping for a win/win situation, but we'll see how it all turns out.

My Unfortunate Psychosis/Abundance of Pretty Flowers -- Grand Junction, CO

I’m starting this post from the olive green, cookie encrusted (for which I take partial responsibility) couch at Main Street Bagels. As usual, the quaint downtown coffee shop is bustling with businessmen, bible readers, and toddling, hysterical persons under two feet tall. I am enjoying a decaf coffee called the Sleeping Goat (which I find particularly amusing), and doing my best to resist adding another layer of crumb to this couch by purchasing a tantalizing  gluten-free peanut butter cookie (for which I've developed a raging addiction).

June and July were my fleeting months of respite. I spent these sweltering summer days drinking too much coffee (even if it was decaf), putting my full-length play into proper format, resurrecting our themed dinner parties, feverishly designing yoga routines, and spending six hours a week looking after an exquisite flower garden. Regardless of how wonderful this laid-back lifestyle might sound, I was not at all satisfied. I am one of those obnoxious individuals who cannot relax unless they have absolutely no time to relax. I always feel like I ought to be doings something, making something, learning something, going somewhere, and if I am not doing all of these things simultaneously, I feel like I’m wasting my life and am riddled with guilt. My conscience frees me from this unfortunate psychosis only when I’ve successfully managed to overcrowd my planner for the foreseeable future. That said, from this month on, I’m delighted to announce that nearly every moment of every day shall be accounted for. 

I’ve recently taken a full-time position at Hands Up Homes for Youth, wherein I am a primary counselor for boys who have been charged with sexual abuse. At this facility, the convicted youth receive cognitive-behavioral and equine therapy until they are deemed safe to return  to the community. If they aren’t approved by the psychiatrist as harmless within two years of their arrival, the boys are either sent to jail or to another treatment facility. My job is to help the boys keep safe space, safe numbers, and to teach them how to respect boundaries. Hands Up Homes for Youth has a 70% success rate -- as in, 70% of the boys successfully complete their treatment and never re-offend. The work can be emotionally and mentally draining, and learning how some of these kids offended has given me very, very heavy boots, but the results make the labor more than worthwhile. I also thoroughly agree with the treatment method utilized by this center, and love that I get to be a part of it. Cognitive-behavioral therapy focuses on restructuring  flawed or negative thought processes. The boys aren't allowed to use words like "never", "but", "just", "always", "only", or any other words that minimize a situation or transfer blame. They aren't allowed to say "try". They must say, "I will do my best, and my best is good enough." These forbidden words are called "distortions", as they are seldom (look at me not saying "never") true. They are taught to take responsibility for their actions and a great deal of the program focuses on developing empathy. 

I love this type of work. I wish I could go into greater detail, but I very much doubt sharing detailed information is allowed.

My gardening job with Judy continues to delight. The ephemeral nature of flower gardening is an important grounding factor in my life, as I tend to think to the future so much that I overlook the present. Every day in Judy's garden is vastly different, and spending time watering, weeding, composting, and planting her backyard wonderland teaches me how to notice things. Little things. Things a hyperactive, head-in-the-clouds person like myself would be sure to miss under ordinary circumstances. 

But who wants to miss this?

Part of my job is dead-heading. This means I have to hunt out all the dead/wilting plants and cut them down to their most promising bud/leaf.

Judy's compost heap. Clippings from her plants and horse manure will eventually decompose into this:

Judy's mostly decomposed compost heap. Somewhere along the line, a tiny bit of bindweed infiltrated the wooden walls, and now the entire pile is infested with the invasive plant. Because of this, the ordinarily quick and painless procedure of spreading bucketfuls of decayed goodness over the lawn became painstakingly tedious. I have to sift through each handful, extracting the bindweed's telling, unwelcome white roots as I go.

I love that many of Judy's leaves are just as attractive as her flowers.

Judy has four cats. They all find immense satisfaction in rubbing up against me while I have sharp objects in my hands, or plopping down in front of me whilst I'm carrying something thorny/heavy.

I'm also enjoying comparing/contrasting gardening problems between the arid state of Colorado and the waterlogged country of Ireland. Unfortunately for me, they are so vastly different that nary a thing I learned in Ireland whilst WWOOFing has seemed to translate to my work here. In Ireland, we had to work to keep things dry. Rot and mildew were huge concerns to farmers. In Colorado, we have to bend over backwards to keep things wet. Judy's flowers wilt due to lack of water and they shrivel and die due to sunburn. 

Sunburn is unheard of in Ireland. FYI.

The weeds are also quite different. In Ireland, it was chickweed and nettle I had to keep a wary eye out for. 

In Colorado, bindweed and elm sprouts appear to be the flower gardener's primary nemeses.

Bindweed is exceptionally bothersome, as its roots can extend 20-30 feet into the earth and every root that gets broken off and blown away can grow into an entirely new plant.

I have begun planning for my next adventure. As of now, I hope to fly to Ireland in June of 2013, spend one month with George and Maria, one month in England, one month in Scotland, and then fly to the border of France and Spain to walk the Camino de Santiago with Alex. After that, I'll see where I am budget-wise and energy-wise. If both are faring moderately well, I'll stop by Southern Italy, Greece, and Turkey before I FINALLY move to Portland. Goodness.
Life changes so quickly. I'm learning to flow with it, though, and at this moment, I am absolutely thrilled with how the many quick changes have shaped my life.