Dream lives & broken sprinklers

A friend of mine recently made the observation that perhaps the reason time moves so slowly for children is that they live completely in the moment, while it speeds past for us adults because we are always thinking ahead and worrying about so many things at once. This reminded me of Jesus’s command not to worry about tomorrow and his suggestion that we should emulate children in our faith. I never made a connection between those two elements before but it seems an obvious and powerful one to me now. I have just come back from three weeks of living in the moment, so to speak—of living what in some ways is my dream life.

As I’ve been unpacking my suitcase and transferring loads of clothes from the washing machine to the dryer, I’ve been reflecting on what exactly made the past three weeks my dream life and why it is so hard for me to be back home. Usually, even after the best trips, I feel a kind of gladness and contentment in returning home. So far, I do not feel this. Part of it may be jet lag, part of it the fact that it is ridiculously hot here (90s), and part of it is that before I’d even drunk my first cup of tea this morning, I got a nasty note on my front door from the city that pretty much said, “Hey, loser, fix your damn sprinklers so they don’t flood so much water into the street and mess up the Thursday morning street cleaning.” Okay, so maybe it didn’t exactly say that, but it was close.

So back to the dream life I was in just a short while ago and what made it so wonderful. First of all, I loved being in such a beautiful physical environment—the lush greenery of the English countryside, the openness and space, the beauty of the architecture in the cities, and the rich history—depth and character present everywhere I looked. I also loved having such complete escape and freedom from all of my responsibilities at home—dealing with bills, cleaning, repairs, doctor’s appointments, phone calls, etc. I didn’t have to worry about gushing sprinklers and how to fix them. I didn’t have to think about work. I didn’t have to worry about returning the shoes I ordered that don’t fit. All I had to think about every morning was what wonderful things I wanted to visit and explore that day. Even though I usually had a rough plan in mind, I was able to make decisions moment by moment and focus completely on what was around me and just enjoying and absorbing it. I got to be Katherine outside of my usual context—Katherine the traveler and explorer and nothing else.

Finally, I was writing about it all and loving it. All writing, I believe, is a process of moving deeper into oneself while simultaneously reaching out to connect with others. I think writers yearn for publication not just for recognition and validation (although those are powerful and often dominant motivators) but also for connection, to have someone out there read their words and be moved by them in some way or other. I connect with authors and their hearts and thoughts all the time as a reader and get to know them on some level even though they might be long dead and/or we’ll never meet face to face. All writers write for themselves, but they are also writing for a reader even if that reader is one merely hoped for and the texts end up in a drawer or hard drive somewhere never to see the light of day. Or at least that’s what I think. I am still so hesitant to call myself a writer and claim the right to speak as one.

Case in point: when I was experiencing technical difficulties at my B&B in Keswick and was trying to communicate to the owner how important it was for me to be able to connect to the internet and continue my blog, I blurted out, “I’m a writer!” The minute her expression changed to one of respect and she said, “Really?” I felt like the biggest fraud. “Well, I do some freelance writing, mainly for non-profits,” I amended, and then added, “My profession is actually teaching—I’m a high school English teacher. Writing is kind of a hobby. I'm just doing a little blog while I travel.” I was completely babbling at this point and finally stopped myself before I could downgrade all the way to, “I type.”

I met two “real” writers during the course of my travels. The first had just won a very prestigious award from the British government for her work and the second had been in England for a month doing research for her next novel, which is to be set in England in the 1860s. I look at them and the gulf between where I am and where they are seems too wide and deep for me to ever get across. They have lives I both covet and believe are impossible for me to ever achieve. It isn’t just that I believe they must have considerably more talent than I have, but also that they must somehow know secrets that I don’t—the password into the world of being published. But that is both an exaggeration and oversimplification. I think, perhaps, what both of these women have besides talent is the drive and commitment to pursue it. They have made writing their lives and I’m sure there was a great deal of hard work and frustration that went into doing that that I am not aware of and that I am afraid to fully commit myself to.

I look at friends of mine who are yearning writers, painters, musicians, dancers, and actors. We dabble and we dream, but we hesitate to name ourselves in those ways and to give ourselves those identities. But I am beginning to suspect that until we do, we really won’t ever be able to cross that gulf into the “real.”

I seem to have ventured away from the ideas I began with, but I think the two are somehow related—living in the moment and writing, freedom from anxiety and burdens and a clearer sense of self. I want to bring some of those elements of what I experienced and how I felt during those three weeks traveling in England back into my life here in tacky and too hot Anaheim. But first I need to go figure out how to fix my sprinkler heads.