The timekeeping part of my brain has decided to skip 2015 completely. Rather than writing 2015, or even lagging behind with 2014, I find myself writing checks or dating blog posts with 2016. No, don’t check, I already corrected the date on this one.
Time does move fast, so I’d prefer not to skip whole years at this point. With teenage children, missing a year means a greater loss than I would like to imagine. As it is, the distance to adulthood, which seemed unfathomable when they were babies, is suddenly oh so near.
Spring is the birthday season for us. Two of us in March, ushering in the return of fifty degree days and mud. Two of us in May, waking to birdsong and lilacs blooming. This week it doesn’t seem possible that the snow will finally go, but it is retreating, in skips and jumps. The roof is almost clear. The walkways show bare ground. The river of shells under the bird feeder is now resting on grass, the snow sooty to either side. It’s time to take the feeder in, before the bears come roaming, but I hate to leave the faithful chickadees looking, looking in the tree.
I’ve stalled on writing. Actually, it’s less a stall than it is a conscious choice to take a little time off. April and May have become the confluence of three large projects, one writing, two life, and I’ve decided to enter them with a clear head. I’ve been reading instead, a little of everything. I’m not talented at taking pleasure in things. Reading for pure enjoyment has fallen by the wayside a bit in recent years. Finding my way back to it seems as valid a choice as writing at this moment.
That means lots of time at the library. I’m a glutton when it comes to library books, taking out far more than I’ll ever finish. Some of them I never even start, just keep for a few days, a week, before returning them. Many I read a chapter, four, five, and stop. Good books, for the most part, just not the flavor I’m looking for at that moment. That’s why I don’t do reviews, or try to keep track of things on Goodreads. If I don’t finish a book I’ve gone so far as to bring home, it’s almost never a comment on the quality of the writing. It’s just me navigating the constraints of time and my own needs as a reader.
At some point, the homeschooling will end. When it does, things will change. There will be, I imagine, more time for reading everything. There will be less (no?) algebra, and no dissecting of flowers at the kitchen table, and no discussion of how to build 3D printers. There will be just my own work to edit, my own library books to return. It will be a change of seasons quite unlike any I’ve been through.
For now, I’ll try to remain planted in the current year. I’ll read my bits and pieces of books, and savor the ones I follow through to the end. I’ll take the bird feeder down, say goodbye to the snow. And though I’ll look forward to June and the end of the rush, I’ll remember to enjoy spring while it is here.