Have Yourself a Wild Little Springtime

Some days refuse to be tamed.

After a busy week last week followed by an equally busy weekend, I was determined to make today productive. I had some catching up to do, as well as a list that had both budded and blossomed over the weekend.

The day started out bright and early with a brief visit from a contractor, sent over by my neighbor, who knew we were considering some home improvement projects. A wise woman would have hit the ground running after that, but feeling neither wise or energetic, I frittered away much of the morning doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that and very little of what was actually on my to-do list.

Finally, around 11, I decided a change in venue was in order. Since this was serious business, I decided to go to the Starbucks across town rather than my usual haunt around the corner. I packed up my laptop and enough work to keep me busy for the rest of the day, drove over and placed my order. 

And ran into a former student - a young lady who has always been bright and wise beyond her years and who has blossomed into a young woman I’m proud to know. We talked for a couple of hours, both of us ignoring our laptops, and choosing instead to catch up on the last decade or so.

Though I knew I should be working, I also knew this was time well spent, not just because I was enjoying Amanda’s company, but also because one lesson I’ve learned is that people trump to-do lists. Although time management experts would probably have told me that I should find a polite way to bring the conversation to a close, ditching a person for a list seemed neither manageable nor desirable.

Still, to-do lists have a way of nagging at me, so I figured I’d catch up at home where I could whittle down the list and still consider it a day well spent. I fixed some lunch and decided to read a chapter of the novel I’m currently enjoying - one by an author I “know” thanks to blogs and the Internet. One chapter became two, and then I had to message her to tell her how moved I’d been by one of the chapters - how indignant I’d been when an allegedly educated character acted not only ignorantly, but with unforgivable callousness, how I’d wanted to jump through the page and throttle her (the character, not the author) - because after all, how often do you get to actually tell an author something like that?

And suddenly it was late afternoon. 

Some days refuse to be tamed, and I’m pretty sure that’s a good thing. Without a few wild days here and there, life would be more productive, but less interesting. We might get a lot done, but we’d have fewer conversations, and while I want to accomplish something in this life, I don’t really want to do it all by myself. So, I shall spare myself the guilt, scratch what I can off the list and take a moment to be grateful for people who make life interesting.

And if you're curious about who the interesting author might be, stop back on Friday. Her blog is my Friday Freebie this week.