Press Pause

Stop and think

There was a sitcom in the 80’s called Out of this World about a girl who was half alien, thereby granting her special powers. Her best trick — the one that still has me thinking about the show 40 years later — was when she brought her index fingers together, stopping time completely. Obviously, it was used for all sorts of shenanigans in the sitcom universe, but I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve wanted an ability like that. I just want to pause time… to breathe.

I like the Cambridge Dictionary’s definition of pause the best: to stop doing something for a short time. For those of us who have breaks from work during this time of year, it can definitely feel like a pause, almost like stolen time. Even my husband gets to experience it this year, as Christmas and New Years fall so close to the weekends that the company extended those weekends. Though I do have a handful of things planned for this next week — must take advantage of being off during regular business hours! — it is mostly a gap of wide open space. I could look at it as time to fill, or I could look at it as time to be.

• I was given 8 books for Christmas. I could read for hours and hours with coffee, then wine, then tea. (That’s how my process goes, drink-wise. Yours?)

• A friend and I have started writing letters — paper and pen! — to each other and it is my turn.

• My daughter received adult activity books for Christmas, and one of them is for 90s kids.

• Dan got me a pair of gaiters for Christmas, so I can take out the snowshoes and not have to change my pants afterwards.

• Play rehearsal — for the one I’m directing, and also for the one I’m IN — starts up after the break, so now is a time for reading scripts and visualizing where I belong. In my pajamas.

• The cat does not want to leave my lap, so what do you all actually expect me to do?!

I hope you are allowed time — if not a week, then a day, or an hour, or even just a moment — to quiet the “I should be”s and allow the “I am”s.

Thanks for reading, always.

Love, Susie