random thoughts: on playing hooky
Yesterday evening, while Marcus and Alex were at her evening taekwondo lesson, I decided to grab my camera and take some photographs of the flowers that are blooming everywhere lately, both in our garden, and in our neighbours'. After living in this house for 6 years, all the folks who live in homes surrounding ours, God bless them, seem to have gotten used to the strange, black woman with the big afro who crawls all over their front yards in her bare feet when things start to bloom. The dogs see me coming from their living room windows and lose their minds, barking madly; I imagine their owners peek outside to see what the commotion is all about.
Oh, it's just Karen, I envision them saying to their loved ones. She's got her camera with her. Figures. I noticed this morning that the hibiscus bush had a few buds on it.
Gloaming.
As I took these photographs, that was the word that kept coming to mind: gloaming. There's something about that word -- so much more romantic than "dusk," more mysterious than "twilight." I was sort of surprised by it: it's not a word that I use in any sort of easy conversation; and I'm pretty sure I haven't read a book with it recently, or even thought of it in years. And yet, there it was.
Gloaming.
I really should read more.
I tried to remember when the last time I took a day off was -- I mean, truly took it off, by not blogging, tweeting, answering email -- and I was at a loss. I post photographs online whenever we travel, even for leisure and family vacations, and I check email constantly, weekends included.
Perhaps this is why I've been wallowing -- while I enjoy what I do, it's sort of hard to sustain that kind of energy. And besides, things are picking up: I have a few speaking gigs approaching, the Path Finder summer session begins Monday, June 3rd, and all sorts of other events are filling up my schedule.
So as I took the final shot of a fading rose (in the gloaming), I made a decision: it's time to play a bit of hooky. I've put my out-of-office on my email, and other than using my camera, I'm not working for the next 3 days.
(Even typing that felt weird.)
Have a wonderful weekend, friends -- and may it be filled with some downtime. See you on Monday.
Song: Babylon by David Gray
Only a few days remain to sign up for Path Finder -- registration closes next Wednesday. I'm so looking forward to this session -- it has been a while since I've done the exercises myself, so I plan on doing them right alongside you. I hope you'll join us.