I just dug this out of my drafts folder; not sure why I didn't hit "publish" a long time ago! It has nothing to do with July 4th, and it's a bit outdated by now, but since I do still love my little hourglass (which is really a 10-minute glass), I'll go ahead and share.
When I start getting overwhelmed, when I have trouble managing so much to do, when I want to do anything other than that huge task that's been looming over me, . . . when I start to feel like circumstances are controlling me instead of the other way around, that's when I pull out my telephone's 10-minute timer. Ten minutes is powerful. Ten minutes of email; ten minutes of research; ten minutes of stretching; ten minutes of memo-writing. Those focused bursts end up being more productive than the alternative hour of foggy slogging along.
One of the things that I started doing about four years ago was a ten-minute mediation before I left the office. It's been (on those days that I actually do it) a balm, and a chore. It's a chore because it's hard to make myself sit down and do it (work is calling, baby!), and it's been a balm because I feel approximately 85 times better once I've actually done it.
I've been only mildly twitchy about using the same timer for my meditation as for my work-related tasks. Honestly, it's mostly been just fine; so I guess this next thing I'm going to talk about is truly splurge-y: I've gotten myself a meditation timer. It turns out (the amazing internet informed me) that it *is* possible to get a 10-minute hour glass, as oxymoronic as that name is. I shared that particular piece of information with my husband, who was super happy to go ahead and buy it for me. After all, he loves buying, and he loves me, and those two things don't get to go together very often, so he celebrates when they do.
Maybe I'm drawn to holding an hourglass (10-minute glass ) because of Mrs. Flanagan's 10th grade English class, in which we read Return of the Native. There's something in Thomas Hardy that appeals to angsty teenagers, I gotta say. I was particularly mesmerized by the character of Eustacia Vye, who wandered the heath carrying an hourglass so she could hold in her own hands the tangible evidence of her life slipping away, wasted in remote places, while she yearned for something better. I've had a much more fulfilling life than hers, but I still think about the symbolism of carrying an hourglass.
And so, ever since Christmas, I've gotten to carry my beautiful little sand timer into whatever corner of the house calls to me at the moment. My sister has been a "sit on the floor every day" kick (getting up and down from the floor is an indicator of longevity, and we're a health-kick kind of a family), so I often sit on the floor. I breathe in "Grace" and breathe out "Faith".
A few years, I wrote to my running buddies:
And in these dark, cold times, there's still so much to be grateful for: warm houses, warm friends, warm clothing, bodies that warm up as we keep moving them around. It's hard to get out there, and yet we do, because somehow we have faith that getting our swaddled bodies out into the freezing, dark morning is going to somehow end up bringing us joy. We breathe in grace; we breathe out faith, and somehow we make it up that Duke Street Hill.
My body is gravity powered like that sand timer: I'm an amazing down-hiller, but I am often the first to walk when we turn around and head back up. Maybe that's another reason I am drawn to this beautiful little thing.
I love to see the little thread of sand stretching from the top to the bottom, connecting future to past or something. The glass catches the light -- sometimes there's a mini-sunset inside the hour-glass that echoes the larger sunset I see through the glass of the window. The sand that falls makes piles that do mini-landslides and shimmying downhill dances.
And, since I promised myself I'd stop when I'd gotten to 10-minutes of blog writing, I guess I'll end right here and go do something else now.
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