Space for Gentle Living

This summer I had a mini-revelation.

I was passed out on the couch at the lake, recovering from eleven months of running, my mind a stream-of-consciousness blur, when I got to thinking about Ma, as I often do in moments of exhaustion or self-pity.  For me, Ma has always been the epitome of not just motherhood or wife-hood but simply good person-hood.  I'm referring to the inimitable Caroline Ingalls, whose power and ingenuity has been immortalized in her daughter, Laura's, "Little House" books.  I read the "Little House" series when I was a girl and recently reread them again with my daughter and have come to the conclusion that Ma's pretty much as perfect as a person can be.  Sure she's got her foibles, but what astounds is her gentleness - and it's a gentleness that never falters - even when surrounded by wolves, or when her husband is lost in a blizzard, or during that long winter when she ground their last bit of wheat with the coffee grinder and made what she thought was their last loaf of bread.  Here's the thing about Ma: she never loses it.

I got to thinking about my own ancestors, laying there on the couch at the lake.  My grandparents grew up on farms and their parents were pioneers.  They didn't get a lot of vacations, and somehow they managed to do a lot of work and raise a lot of children without completely passing out.  And I wondered, as I lay there on the couch, how did they do it?  How did they manage all that work, sun up to sun down, day in and day out, year after year after year without the luxury of a month-long holiday?  What would they say if they could see their progeny, one hundred years down the line, depleted, head drooping and drooling?

My revelation was this: what kept Ma's sanity intact and what enabled my own ancestors to work as much as they did were hard and fast margins that protected the blurring of lines between work and rest.  Without electricity, works necessarily starts and ends with daylight.  A life lived in conjunction with the seasons protects time for interior and exterior projects.  And every single week these people took an entire day off to rest and rejuvenate.  That's 52 days a year, much more then my meager month.  Their work (and their ability to approach work and life cheerfully and with optimism) was sustained by the steady presence of serious margins: that time in between time - blank time and blank space - to fill as they saw fit.

I am realizing that a key to bringing a spirit of gentleness into our days and into our very selves is to protect our margins.  This doesn't mean trying to live as though we're always on holiday, that's not realistic, but protecting certain spaces in each day that we might eat well and with loved ones, and sleep well, and walk or garden, or think or play and rest, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly.  It means asking: what really has to happen now?  What time is it?  What season? 

Ma always knew the right answer.