In praise of dawdling

I am a dawdler at heart. Always was, when I was a kid. This feeling that plagues me nowadays, as an adult, of having Too Much To Do, gives me a panicky feeling that I hate. Paul Adasiak, over at the Fairbanks Pedestrian, hit it on the head with his post on the metaphor, "Life is a Highway," when he described it as odious.

Indeed.

So we zoom from birth to death as fast as we can with as few stops along the way as possible when we live our lives as though they are highways. And occasionally we get stuck in traffic jams. But basically, we're in a metal box of a life on a concrete, ugly, high-speed and pretty much pointless rush to get nowhere.

Nuh-uh. That is not the life for me. Yesterday I had a perfectly delightful, very productive, very slow and dawdle-filled day. I even took a nap, but I got rid of a huge pile of paper trash, planted seeds of various sorts for my garden, swept up, put away dishes, got the mail, and tidied. I did it slowly and with a great sense of satisfaction. I made quite a bit of vitamin D for myself. (It was sunny, and I made sure to stand in it for a while.)

It's amazing how much one can get done without noticing it when one dawdles and meanders and putters. And it's very relaxing. I always feel as though I'm in a huge stressful rush at my campus job (and frequently with the Republic), and I don't think it's very good for my health.