I spent the majority of a recent afternoon just reading. Getting lost in a book. And I’ve got to tell you, this - one of my favorite pastimes as a younger person - felt very weird. It felt scandalously lazy. And I do know what the experts say. What everybody says. That doing nothing (or in this case, doing something, but not your frantic list of everyday tasks) is important. I can find you a million opinions online dictating that society’s downfall will be due to the fact that we don’t know how to relax anymore. We can’t focus. That we are so wound up we cannot wind down.

And, sure, yes, ok, maybe true. But in examining my own personal experience with this concept, I think it’s there’s a fairly simple explanation for why I don’t get lost in a book more often. An explanation which does not necessitate listening to five separate podcasts dedicated to this topic (although, I am prone to do just that when I want answers).

I have three kids, and right now, two of them are blissfully ensconced at sleepaway camp in Maine, being fed and occupied and talked to by other people. Although this is Nora’s fourth summer there, and Gabe’s third, it’s is a really strange feeling for me. The quiet of less people, accentuated by the summer season, with no school or extracurriculars in session. It’s unfamiliar compared to the everyday rush, and this year in particular, it’s got me thinking about the future, when Nora will head off to college for a rather extended version of sleep away camp.

What’s so fascinating to me about the passage of time with a family is how the changing dynamics so dramatically characterize your days. Spending time with Aidy and Gabe is very different than just Gabe, which is different than two sisters lying on the big blue rug in Nora’s bedroom listening to music, and that is different than all three of them in the minivan on the way to piano lessons.

This summer, we’ve been enjoying another round of “Aidy days” while her siblings are gone. The three of us are so relaxed, and casually impulsive. “What should we have for dinner?” we say at 7:30 pm. The other day we drove straight from a social event to the movies, effortlessly making the decision on the ten-minute car ride, skipping the exit that would take us home. No disputes, no impassioned fourth and fifth opinions to consider! And the household tasks seem diminished by an impossible percentage. Like, I have 600 times less laundry to do.

Which brings us back to where I started. The reason I don’t get lost in a book more often is that I rarely have the time, or perhaps more accurately — I don’t make the time. Do I need to get more used to that feeling of calm? Whether or not I think have the time, would it be beneficial for me to cultivate more moments of focus? Especially considering the rapidly changing dynamics of this family, the expected yet shocking growth of these once very young children? And the startling realizing that, ok, maybe not yet, but at some point, I am going to have more uninterrupted hours?

More importantly, don’t I want that feeling regardless? Now, and later, too? Don’t we all?

Yeah I do! I want it. And I need to learn it better. But perhaps it’s best not categorized as some crisis of modernity, necessitating a workshop or aha moment inspired by an insightful Instagram post. Perhaps a lot of what we’re after is best not categorized in that way.

Maybe I (and maybe we, if you’re feeling this) just need to practice. Maybe, when feeling the twitch of unease that accompanies the unusual stretch of an unplanned evening, I need to relax into this gifted time, instead of fill it up with perfunctory items.

I think I’ve talked about this before, so please forgive the repetition, but it is often so striking to me how simply taking the proper steps creates the change. I have been experiencing a lot of tightness in my muscles lately after running, another symptom of an older body (which may have to become a sub-category on this website if I keep writing about it and, I regret to say, I am likely going to do that). I went to see a wonderful chiropractor/sports medicine doctor recommended by friends, who helped me work through the persistent pain, which had become quite existential to me (as well as, you know, actually painful). I went in like, “this is just my life now,” and he was like, “sure, but we can treat it with some stretches!” And we did.

It is not always so simple. But often it is, and I will take the joy of possibility! Unleashed in the mundanity of hamstring flexibility!

Now, after I run, I do a ten-minute post running stretching routine that I watch on YouTube. Who knew that the most life-changing actions would be so pedestrian?

When considering all the above, I thought that I’d try and fit this year’s summer goals into that theme. More about the calm, the focus, the allowing things to take time. To get a annoyingly metaphorical: more about the post-run stretch than the run itself.

I got all angsty about trying to figure out what that even looked like. Then I realized that making these goals has been about exactly this all along. Using these longer, more aimless days to carve out time and focus for the most important, and the most frivolous, too. Engaging in the practice that makes the change happen, and tackling the one-offs that you never got around to in the midst of it all. That, perhaps ironically, is where I most often find the meaningful calm; a sense of agency.

I’m getting this year’s list out late this year. Early July. This is the point in the summer when people get all flummoxed, myself included. “It’s almost the Fourth! Summer is flying by!”

True. Yet, somehow, inexplicably, but like always, summer has also only now truly arrived. We’ve just begun to settle in. There’s plenty of time. And the constraints of summer are arbitrary anyway. I simply use the season as a tool, an answer, an opening, like the guy who watches you spiral out about your waning mobility, and says: we can fix this.

I’ve got his number if you need it!

Summer goals 2024:

Try a Pilates class
Incorporate coffee shop time into work-at-home days (to alleviate the hours spent alone)
Read a recent nonfiction book about technology - any topic!
Go on a bicycle ride
Climb rocks by the ocean
Meditate regularly (every day?!)
Attend a sound bath
Go to the newly renovated Peabody Museum
Have a martini at the Newagen bar
Finish Ulysses
Take a sailing lesson
Go on at least one college tour
Make salsa with the peppers Gabe is growing
Host a garage bar open mic night
Get into some poetry (old and new)
Turn the blog email list into a proper newsletter
Visit a new spot in Maine
Paddleboarding (lots)
Cook mussels for dinner
Run to the “All are welcome: area for rest and prayer” sign on the Farmington Canal Trail; rest
Outdoor concerts!
Stroll downtown New Haven
Finish the Neapolitan Novels and then create a “to be read” bedside table pile of books
Spend quality dock (jumping) time in Southport
Enjoy the backyard, plant some patio perennials
Schedule phone breaks and make better use of the “DND” feature when needed
Walks, talks, figuring it all out with friends
Explore ways to get more involved in local politics
Spend quality time with family, then plan some more