Snow Geese Migrating North

The new year started and I bought myself a planner. It is green and twenty twenty three is inscribed across the rubbery-plastic cover. The spine was unbroken and the pages’ teeth, golden too. It is a weekly planner where the weeks start on Monday. The days of the week, besides Saturday and Sunday, are large, lined blocks in which to write, indicating that weekends are for planless reprieve. A white ribbon is attached at the top so to indicate where in the year I am. This planner did not know me yet.

On my laptop, I keep an ongoing document simply labeled as “The Almanac”. In this living document, I have bullet-listed notable and important events, in chronological order, under their respective months. There are birthdays of people I rarely talk to. I also note approximate (beginning of the month, middle of the month, end of the month) events such as when violets unfurl their purple faces in the yard (early April), when coyotes start laughing at the sunset (early September), and when the Orionids Meteors scratch the night sky (late October). Deaths are noted: my sister (1/16/18), Charles Bukowski (3/9/94), May Sarton (7/16/95), Flannery O’Connor (8/3/64). All 12 full moons are labeled with their respective nicknames. I sat down with my new planner and went week-by-week, plugging in important events.

Always a planner, an avid lister of things, and a documenter of things important and asinine, I still keep a planner despite no longer being a student and no longer having a job that requires more from me than showing up. I am not a mother and not an organizer of important events. I am not incredibly sociable. All of this by choice.

The older I get, the more my planner becomes more and more a reflection of who and how I am. Other than some simple obligations and a job that I am able to leave at work, my time belongs to leisure. I hike with my husband. I feed my sourdough starter. I plan my garden. I brew kombucha. I write. I take pleasure in reading and experiencing books of many genres. I go for walks. I look for wormholes into the woods. I play with my dogs. I plan game nights with friends. I admire and question art. I go to the movies alone. I think deeply about things. I spend a lot of time alone. There are many mights and mays and wills. I will meadowscape the lawn. I will bake the perfect sourdough loaf to complement my garden-grown tomatoes. I will finish the manuscripts. I might get published. I might read all the books written by J.C. Hallman this year. I might walk 36 miles in one day. I will watch the solar eclipse while in Utah’s desert. I might find glowing rocks along Michigan’s coast. I might learn more about geology and ecology. I will enjoy everything that I possibly can.

Admittedly, sometimes I feel conflicted being in my mid-thirties and not ambitious in any traditional manner. I have lost most job ambition, preferring to have a job that allows me to pay my bills and save money without stress. I spent my youth and college years expecting too much from myself and I understand that it is mostly due to capitalism. Pride is often birthed from capitalism. Raised by two parents who never attended college, I was the first to attend not only college but graduate school. Because this has happened to many of folks in my generation, there are now terms called “silent quitting” which is charming because in reality all it is, is setting boundaries.

When I was in my early twenties, I remember reading the works of philosopher Theodor Adorno (died 8/6/69) and how he felt about leisure. In the 1930s he moved to California and was taken aback by American leisure, believing Walt Disney to be the most dangerous person in the country. To Adorno, leisure was time to use wisely to become a better person who pursues the “high arts” and to scorn capitalism. To some, he was an elitist jerk. To young me in college—so impressionable, easily intimidated, and surrounded by professors who I thought were elitist—he…well, he made an impression and intimidated me. To the point where 36-year-old me now looks at my planner and thinks what do I care if the soapwort, vetch, nightshade, and jewelweed blossom in early July? What good does it do me if I know that spotted salamander nymphs are skimming around in vernal pools in mid-September?

This has always been my quandary. For as long as I can remember, I have been torn between leisure to enjoy and leisure on which to capitalize monetarily or socially. How do I turn a walk in the woods into a paycheck? How do I turn my garden into an enterprise? How do I turn making things with my hands into something others would want for themselves? How do I turn the things I learn and the books I read into a conversation topic? And just as important, how do I find the type of people who can have that conversation when I am reclusive and live in a town full of people who don’t know who Adorno is? Or Mary Oliver? When and how will I spend time with someone who can bring the landscape to life like Robert Macfarlane? But I digress because I love books.

But Adorno was just one man with judgmental things to say. What…what’s that sound? Oh, it’s just him rolling in his grave as the wi-fi transmits over Haputfriedhof. I don’t know why I’m wondering whether or not I am making a dead man proud. Am I becoming a better person as I plant ostrich ferns in my lawn? Am I becoming a better person by reading Don Mee Choi by my lonesome, with no one to talk to about her? Am I a useful person as I plan excursions into the forest or across the country? A friend to few, an acquaintance to many, and a stranger to nearly all, I find joy in these things. And over the years, I have been successfully shrugging off the cloak of expectations without shame. Did you know that the snow geese start migrating north in February?