Doing the Writing Thing

At the end of the summer semester, the psych prof gave us one last assignment.

It actually went along with her ongoing theme.

On the first day of class, she'd brazenly told us that our biggest problem was that none of us knew how to chill. It was, in fact, America's biggest problem, in her opinion.

Daring to go completely sexist, she said, "You guys are even worse off than the ladies. You're gonna be in bad shape if you don't start doing something different. At least we have each other to talk to; most of you have nowhere to let off steam."

In keeping with her goal for us to chill, she taught us about getting into an altered mental state, what some called the zone. Giving ourselves a mind-vacation on a regular basis. Our upcoming paper would force us to put this into practice.

"Do something for thirty minutes each day for one week that takes your mind off of things. I don't care what it is. Working out, hiking, painting, needlepoint, whatever. Then write about it."

I knew what I wanted to choose, being the multi-tasker that I am, and probably hearing the worn-out words 'make yourself useful' somewhere in the mix, too. I chose gardening. After being in school for over a month, my front yard was a wreck.

On the first experimental day, the sun was shining, birds were singing, and I couldn't wait for my thirty minutes to be over with. My back hurt and I wasn't embracing the process, although I did notice that a person can do a lot by way of cleaning up the yard in thirty minutes. On the second day, I was began to catch a vision of what I wanted the yard to look like, and it was getting there. The time flew by. When the third day came along, I was getting creative, moving plants from one corner to the other and clipping stray branches and leaves. Day four, I finished all of the weeding and started ambitiously chopping away at the overgrown juniper shrubs. On day five, I finished chopping. By day six, I was just playing. I hung glass lanterns with tea lights from the trees, rearranged rocks and prettied things up. Day seven was picky work, perfecting the bare bones of what I'd already designed. I was truly sorry to see the project end.

Infused into the write up was the relief I felt at being 'allowed' to spend time to myself, the calm that enveloped me, and the visual boosts my daily visits to the garden provided me. I wrote of the ripple effect: how my husband started cleaning out the garage, and how my daughter began to deep-clean her room. Most of all, the breathing space for body and soul was the side benefit. I felt different. When I told my sister about the assignment over the phone, she said, "So that's it! That's what's different. I thought you sounded more calm."

All of this I put into print. Then I handed it in.

The entertaining, intelligent professor who was almost young enough to be my daughter, the one with the doctorate...loved it.

"I REALLY enjoyed this!" she wrote across the cover page.


It began to dawn on me that I just might be able to pull off the writing thing.