TheMiddleShelf.com

Spending regular time alone just to collect your thoughts seems like indulgence.  Spending time alone to nurture your vision, to express yourself creatively, to enjoy a personal pursuit that brings  you contentment and pleasure will seem — well , impossible.  Incredulous.  Impractical.  Inconceivable.  Out of the question.

“Right.  In another life,” is the usual response, along with the audible sighs and the rolling of eyes when I raise the topic with a group of women I occasionally have lunch with.  Then wistful looks appear.  “You mean to have fun?” the women want to know.

“Yes.  Have fun.”

“You mean, by myself.”

“Yes, by yourself.  Fun.  What would you like to do if you ever had the time?”

“Fun?”

You can see where this leads.  Most women I meet have a hard time holding up their end of the conversation when fun is the topic.  Let the discourse be on diaper rash or Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and we can hold our own.  But fun for its own sake?  The plain truth is that somewhere between family and careers, most of us have misplaced an essential part of ourselves.  Once we board in solitary sojourns and get that chance to get to know ourselves better, we usually discover that something is missing.

It’s called zest.  Exuberance.  Joi de vivre, as the French would say, or “the love of life.”  The heartfelt happiness we derive when something brings us keen pleasure.  They used to call this magical something a hobby.

But what to do?  The writer Brenda Ueland tells us that our imaginations need “moodling – long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering” to flourish.  Perhaps we also need a little personal sleuthing to uncover what solitary pleasures might be fun.

Today, give in to your need for “moodling.”  And while you’re dawdling and puttering, consider what rewarding reveries you’ve put aside that brought you pleasure in the past.  “How I think about my work is indistinguishable from the way I think about my needlepoint or cooking:  here is the project I’m involved in.  It is play.  In this sense all my life is spent in play – sewing or needlepoint or picking flowers or writing, or buying groceries,” says writer Diane Johnson.  Once you commit to bringing more of a sense of play into your daily round with personal pursuits, life will begin to take on a harmonious lilt.

“Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music–the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people.  Forget yourself.” ~Henry Miller