From Postcards to Astrid

I gave you a bath. You’ve learned to REALLY splash with both your legs and arms. You splashed like crazy and had so much fun. Water got all over me, all over the floor, and all over everything. It was wonderful to watch you. But afterwards, once I took you out and you started screaming while I tried to dress you, I started to feel a bit stressed and annoyed- tired, mostly, I guess, thinking about cleaning up the mess in the kitchen and about how soaked and dishevelled I felt.

Once you were dressed and fed and had settled down again, I thought about this- your fabulous time, my feeling annoyed, and I realized that I should be learning from you instead of getting stressed out about a mess and wet clothes. I should be watching you carefully in your willingness to make a mess, or your complete disregard/lack of understanding of a mess as a concept. You saw an opportunity to be full of joy and you seized it. You found a pocket of time in which to feel free and wild, and you took it, unhesitatingly. I suspect that you have a lot to teach me in these sorts of departments: the department of play, the department of freedom, the department of joy.

Quick!

It's time for me to make a big change in the way I do things. Namely, I have to start doing things faster if I want to actually get anything done. I have spent a lot of time in my life hesitiating, pondering, pausing, and considering. Now is not the time for any of those things.

Now that I have a baby, time is different. My use of it is different. It's very unpredictable when I will actually get time to do things: write, make stuff, clean up...or sometimes, on the crazier days, get dressed, eat, think...

I love Astrid dearly. She's my priority right now. She comes first. But for my well-being I have to accomplish other small things over the course of a day. The only way is to use the scraps of time I get and use them quickly! Before she wakes up...

Which is different for me, but sort of freeing too. I don't have time to do things well, necessarily. So there's no pressure. Getting some bits written down, about anything, will be a triumph.

I have always experienced it to be true that haste makes waste. But now I'm being forced to rethink that. Haste makes, for me these days, something, at least. Even if that something is messy, unfinished, distracted, un-thought out.

Thinking about renovations. Not in the literal sense but more as a theme in my life right now. With the arrival of Astrid I feel a need to reconsider my priorities. A need to find new ways to use my time and a new approach to working on projects. What I thought was the end of everything as I knew it is now presenting itself as a wonderful freeing. It's true I don't "have time" as I did before. But it's still possible to use the scattered bits of it I get.

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