Tomorrow is the day that inspired the sabbatical. My 60th birthday is enough of a milestone that I decided to give myself this entire year as a gift.  It turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

I’m using this week to celebrate my life, to renew my commitment to the sabbatical (and perhaps redefine it), and to consider the new year ahead.

I can truly say, when someone asks what I do, “I am enjoying my life.”

When I thought of a sabbatical year, I imagined I’d take lots of time doing things for myself that are out of the ordinary.  Getting a massage, for example. Well, I haven’t done anything of the sort until this week. Not even a manicure.  Have I even had a haircut beyond the self-administered snips here and there? 

All those years of being a television newscaster required me to do time in the beauty salon for hours every week. Plus, I spent many more hours at home and on the job trying to maintain a well-groomed, well-coiffed, well-dressed, well-made-up camera-ready appearance. How many hours should anyone spend in the hairdresser’s chair over the course of a lifetime? I think I used up most of my quota. Now I only rarely put on makeup, hardly ever slip into high heels, and my hair is usually out of control.

When I was examining the proofs from a recent photo shoot I could see that my eyebrows look really different. When I left television work, I stopped grooming them into “the right” shape every day, twice a day.

So while the salon at the spa beckoned, I couldn’t bring myself to invest any time in a minicure or a haircut. I knew there were already too few hours for me to do everything I really wanted to do, including “nothing” and “relax.”  I did spend a lot of time getting massage.  This experience was a marvelous treat, a real gift to myself and a highlight of the sabbatical year so far. I stretched my body and my mind.

Still unwinding.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh

Ahhhhhhhhhhh.  Sabbatical.  Surrender. 

I had a meeting today that could only be described as “work,” except it was my pleasure.  One of the truths that has emerged for me in the sabbatical is that certain work is not “what I do” as much as “what I love.”

If there’s an activity that brings me pure joy,  it would be nuts to deny myself some of life’s best moments just because they might fall under some arbitrary definition of work during an arbitrarily defined sabbatical period.

You know that old “is this jar full?”  story, where the professor challenges his class to fill the empty glass jar and uses it as a metaphor for time management?  Well, I am discovering what the “big rocks” are in my life.

It’s amazing how easily the sand and the pebbles fall away, how quickly the water evaporates, how clearly the big rocks stand out and can not be denied.

The stones, the pebbles, the sand all started out as much bigger rocks, so I expect my big rocks to be affected by the forces of nature.  Nonetheless, they loom large today.  They beg to be climbed, to be scrambled over, like the playground of life.  That ain’t workin’.

My mother always used to say, “Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.”  I made a big decision several weeks ago and I got what I wished for. That triggered an avalanche of change, which was inevitable.  I knew when I made the decision that if I got what I wanted, it would be like pulling a can out of the bottom of the supermarket display. The whole thing was going to tumble. Period.

So I brought these cans down on my own head.  Now instead of sabbatical days without agendas, I have things to sign, lists to make, people to call, decisions to make.  It might seem as if I made work for myself, but it’s really an investment in simplicity.

At the end of this busy is much less busy.  When I’m done, there will be less, and fewer, and smaller. 

It’s interesting to me how much less stressed I am over the long list of “to do”s that just showed up because I am completely conscious of being 100% responsible for the situation, that I invited it, knowing it would be short-term challenging-but-worth-it because I have a long-term purpose in mind. 

If I wanted to save myself a lot of angst in this life, I would remind myself of that every minute of every day:

“I invited these circumstances because of my desires, and the circumstances might be challenging but the higher purpose will make the effort worthwhile.”

This is/isn’t working.  I am/am not working.  Even though I gave myself six months notice before beginning the sabbatical, I had a number of commitments and pre-paid activities that I thought I could enjoy without working.

I have broken every streak of behaviors/habits/rituals that I began at the first of the year. Some I’ve resumed, some I haven’t.  People say often, “I thought you were supposed to be on sabbatical,” as if what I’m doing looks like I’m working.

Take the Naturally 7   concert in Freeport   on May 1. 

It was a major philanthropic investment for the Harnisch Foundation. It’s been in the works for over a year. I didn’t think there’d be much actual work required on my part during the sabbatical, but I certainly planned to show up for the concert and the master class for students taught by the group on the next day.

 Members of the Grand Bahama Performing Arts Society know that I was hands-on in shepherding that investment, and I made sure that the philanthropic purposes of the grant were fulfilled. It was work, but it wasn’t work to the degree that I would ordinarily throw myself into a project like that.

That was non-work work.

And even though I will admit that it’s work,  it was so much fun!  I had the thrill of seeing them live when Naturally 7 performed at TED. I expected to enjoy their music. What surprised me was the experience of being transported and entranced for nearly an hour at a stretch by the power of a performance.

In this life of multitasking and speedsurfing with the remote, I’m out of the habit of sitting in an auditorium experiencing a concert.  I used to go to lots of live performances in decades past.  Heck, my first husband was a professional musician and listening to live music was just another day at the office for both of us.  It wasn’t unusual to see five or more live performances a week – sometimes five or more major freaking headliners.

But that was another life. In this one, I found myself in the unusual position of being mesmerized for long stretches of time, as Naturally 7 ensnared me in a theatrical spell.  OK, I noticed when the music and the message underscored some of the reasons we brought  Naturally 7  to Grand Bahama, mentally checking off little boxes on the grant report.  But largely my consciousness simply floated off on a cloud of sound.

I now add ”distracting entertainment” to the list of things I’m doing for myself this year.  I have allowed myself to get so busy that it’s been a long time since I made it a point to go to a concert or play and be entertained in a way that takes me out of my head and resonates in my heart. 

It’s indescribably enjoyable to lose one’s self in a virtuoso performance. Ooooh, I have a long list of memorable ones.  (Please feel free to share a time that being in the audience was a transporting experience for you. I’m curious about the range of favorites among those of you who are in this little community of readers.)

Four months?  Could I possibly have been on sabbatical  for four months already? 

I scroll through earlier posts just to see what the heck I have been doing with myself all this time and it reinforces the benefits of journaling, even when one is not on sabbatical.  Maybe this season’s people  will be able to review their social networking communication to remember the days of their lives.

In the past four months I have made myself proud and I have let myself down.  At the same time, I’m somehow managing to be an observer of all this, without judgment.  I notice that when I keep a longstanding “work” commitment that I am rusty.  My skills aren’t sharp.  I’m out of practice.  I’ve delegated so much and stepped back so far that when I try to re-enter the arena, I’m blinded by the light and not able to engage fully. 

And I’m out of the habit of …I don’t know how to put it.  Caring? Being involved? Having a dog in that fight? Giving a ___?  I feel much more like an observer of everything and much less a participant in anything.

The sun is shining, the tropical breeze is blowing, and I’m going for a walk on the beach. 

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Today in Nashville, the life of civic heroine Sigourney Cheek will be celebrated.  She was one of the most interesting characters I’ve ever met. She did so much for Middle Tennessee, and she was beloved. Take a moment to read  her obituary,  and take a moment to smell the flowers. She always did.

I have taken a sabbatical from my sabbatical.

I was working.

If I report on my work, will that be more work?

Since January 1, I’ve kept a couple of streaks going in which I’ve taken some measure of pride.

Because I would not be “working” during this sabbatical year, I promised myself to adhere to a few simple disciplines (I said “simple,” I didn’t say “easy”).  I think I was afraid of the concept of doing nothing.  Perhaps I feared the judgment of others if I did nothing?  Or maybe I needed some structure to avoid feeling unmoored and uncomfortable. 

Indeed, the structure gave me a sense of purpose, accomplishment, personal satisfaction, and…gosh, did maintaining the unbroken streaks turn into ”work”?

Today not a single one of my streaks is unbroken. I was traveling and did not want to take, physically, certain items that were needed to continue several commitmments.  Another streak was broken when I just plain forgot one day.

The streak of unbroken daily posts here was inadvertently broken when the software I thought I had programmed to publish posts at a specific time on a specific day didn’t publish the posts for the past two days.  They were written and ready to go in advance, but they were not published on time.  Did I break that streak? Yes.  Did I do it intentionally? No.  Did I check to make sure the posts had published? No.  I’m accepting full responsibility, AKA blame, not trying to pin my personal actions on software or travel.

So now the challenge for me is this:  how flexible can I be with myself?  Can I feel the same sense of personal pride, even though I let myself down? 

I want to be very hard on myself for breaking promises to someone I should be respecting.  I would like to castigate myself severely, remind myself of thousands of other instances where I failed to do what I said I would do, or did what I swore I would not do. Broken promises are a big deal to me, whether the promise was broken my me or by another.

But I committed to view the world through different eyes this year, so today I’m experimenting with not going nuts over some small infraction of a self-imposed discipline.

I’m not going to allow myself to be depressed, to be self-critical, to feel guilty, or to give up everything because I broke the chain. I will take active counter-measures to remind myself that I do some good things in this world. (I just saw an article featuring a former coaching client of mine who went from wannabe author to world-famous expert in the field. I asked someone to give me an actual pat on the back to acknowledge my contribution to this client’s success.)

I’m watching the trees bending gently in the wind, reminding myself to be as flexible as they are, remembering that for trees, failure to be flexible can mean snapping, breaking, dying. 

Being strong and firm is right some times.  Being flexible and adaptable is right some times.

Today I’m going to be strong and firm about being flexible and adaptable.