Plain and Simple

I am on holiday this week.  I specially took time off work to be with my children as they are also on Spring Break.  Usually I plan special weeks like this chock full of adventures of one kind or another.  I actually had been looking forward to our traditional spring break with my parents at their home in the Gulf Islands.  Somehow, though, I never did get it together enough to pack up the car and head off on any kind of holiday away.  For the first few days,  I felt the tension rising in my throat that somehow even if we didn't get away, I should plan day trips around here.  We did head down to Vancouver for a couple of those trips, but now even as the weather is getting more and more fine, I am not rushing to fill these days.   The kids are sleeping in, pitching in with ordinary chores and decluttering, reading, and helping out in the garden.  They are heading off by themselves to local school playgrounds to play even though that is not common for kids their age and I have to remind them to watch out for the younger kids for whom the playground is really designed.  They have days full of spaces when they are not really doing much of anything.

Obviously, as I am writing about these days, I am still in my heart rushing to defend the worth of my decision to keep these days rather empty and uncluttered.  I have been deeply conditioned to feel that all our minutes, both mine and those of my children, are to be carefully planned and accounted for in a worthwhile and educational way.  I do feel that healthy activity and exercise and adventure especially outside is vitally important to the health of our children.  Our general lifestyle is active and full of regular exercise and activity.  Nevertheless, in our hyperachieving and experience oriented culture, I do feel these empty spaces of the plain and ordinary are also important.  In  many ways our parenting generation is facilitating the entitled and subtle narcissism that often seems to emerge in our teenagers.  I too, am programmed to believe that more is better even in the raising of my children, especially those for whom there have not been healthy options in the past.  I am forever assessing the worth of each day in terms of what has been experienced and accomplished by us all.  When I do not plan great expeditions and my children report that they are bored, I feel guilty.

I am myself learning deep in my heart that my worth is not linked with my doings.  This holiday I am similarily allowing life to happen around here, boredom and all.   I will forgive myself even this justification that we are still learning this holiday.  Learning how to be in the plain and simple of the ordinary treasures of each day.