(Yeah, she was talking to THOSE guys, too!)
Mama was discussing with me her often-present wish to jump in and do everything and go here and go there, and when she reads the local morning paper, she says, “Loulou, look at all these activities around this part of the world. The French really know how to have a full and active life and a good time, to boot! I have to get out and do more things around here.”
And I say to her “Yeah, but do you remember the times when you and papa plan to do something and you get tickets for it and then the time rolls around to get ready and go and maybe the weather has changed or maybe your mind has changed and maybe you’d just rather stay at home and read a book or watch a movie or sit in front of a nice cozy fire and watch me being cute. Remember those times?”
And I was thinking, even I can’t always do all the things I want to do and the sense of obligation to do some of them is okay every now and then, but if it gets too burdensome and obligation pushes out the enthusiasm you had at first to do the thing, then it’s probably best just to put that activity aside for awhile and do it another time. We overload ourselves a bit too much sometimes, when what we need (in my case) is a nice long snooze or a hot bath or just to sit still and think about things (I do that often, as you can see below).
(My thinking pose)
Mama was feeling really obligated years ago when she and papa had the bakery and she had taught cooking classes and gone to schools to talk to and cook with kids and she was working on a book and she was running a company with papa and a lady called her to give a lecture and she said, “Okay.” And then regretted it down to her very tired toes and was feeling awful that she had said yes and so she called the lady and was simply truthful and said, “You know, I made a mistake saying yes, and I’m really backed up and the holidays are coming and I’m just plain tired and I’m going to have to bow out of my commitment.”
And do you know what that lady said? She said, “Oh, that’s fine—I feel the same way often and I really understand that you’re not available right now, and I just wish I could say no more often myself!” Well, that was a lesson and a surprise and mama tries to remember that when she’s overloaded.
For example, she was supposed to do something last night and felt obligated to go and got all dressed up and the weather looked awful and the wind started blowing cooler and papa found her out in the garden, all dressed up, digging holes for the fava beans, because her guru next door says to plant in October for a bumper crop in the spring and she had forgotten, and you know what?
She looked happier than when she was headed for the event she missed. So it all turned out well and they probably didn’t even miss her.
If only she hadn’t dug up the garden in those new espadrilles….
Well LouLou, it seems our humans are similar in their habit of doing things as the spirit moves them. At least our HuMom is prone to following her whim. Our manchild is forced to attend school whether he likes it or not. And he’s pretty firm on the not. We enjoyed reading about you in Mousebreath and thought we’d stop by. Our HuMom is fascinated by your travel from France to Italy. Compared to her rather provincial life, yours sounds very glamorous. Well, we don’t have a blog of our own. HuMom is afraid of the commitment, but we do get around, commenting on everyone else’s , so we hope to stop by again.