{"id":818,"date":"2011-07-02T20:44:24","date_gmt":"2011-07-03T00:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/?p=818"},"modified":"2011-07-02T20:44:24","modified_gmt":"2011-07-03T00:44:24","slug":"down-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2011\/07\/down-time.html","title":{"rendered":"down time ~"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This is my past few months: the sands of time in a huge gritty mess :). Complete w\/ the occasional glass shard. But yesterday my largest summer project ended (successfully!), as did another project, and a third the week before that. So tomorrow, in honour of hard work and exhaustion, we’re off to relax. A balcony room overlooking the Ozarks, walking quaint Victorian streets, a haunted hotel, and breakfast someone else makes and cleans up :). Can it get any better?<\/p>\n

Only if you add in a lovely drive through the hills up to our destination, dinner at a real log cabin (best steak imaginable), and artisan crafts. Those who know me will know<\/em> how enticing that all sounds :).<\/p>\n

Then feast your eyes on the hotel, built before the turn of the 19th century ~ \"\"<\/a>complete with turrets, breakaway vistas to the church behind and 50′ below, and a ground floor spa. Sigh… My over-worked brain is already softening in anticipation.<\/p>\n

We need R&R.\u00a0 Otherwise, how can we find within our frazzled hearts any peace for the people who need us? I’m a smiler — and a hugger, my friends will warn you. And unless you make it transparently<\/em> clear that you hate hugs, I will envelop you in one. Maybe even if we haven’t actually met, if there’s any pretext of me knowing. People need to touch :). We need<\/em> hugs, in my opinionated opinion.<\/p>\n

But in order to keep smiling (w\/out the family Alzheimer’s to fall back on), I need to rest. And I need to feed my inner artist, as Julia Cameron<\/a> says. So I’ve packed the portable oil set my \"\"<\/a>indulgent husband bought me for my birthday a few months ago, a Moleskine for drawing and painting in, my new journal (the old one’s about full!), and a couple of books — both the e- kind and the traditional hard-copy kind :).<\/p>\n

I’m going to sit like Denise Levertov<\/a> used to do, watching a mountain (well, an Arkansas hill :)) breathe. And I will breathe almost as slowly. There have been fireworks exploding in my head for weeks now — well, some might call them neurons, but they sure felt hotter and more incandescent than usual! I’m going to celebrate silently. Peacefully. And maybe find the time to reconnect with what sparks imagination — R&R.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is my past few months: the sands of time in a huge gritty mess :). Complete w\/ the occasional glass shard. But yesterday my largest summer project ended (successfully!), as did another project, and a third the week before that. So tomorrow, in honour of hard work and exhaustion, we’re off to relax. A…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,22,58],"tags":[11,1181,92,91],"class_list":["post-818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feeding-your-inner-artist","category-poetry","category-writing","tag-beginners-heart","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-denise-levertov","tag-fourth-of-july"],"yoast_head":"\ndown time ~ - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This is my past few months: the sands of time in a huge gritty mess :). Complete w\/ the occasional glass shard. 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Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. 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