Luxury of time

I am trying to remember what I did with my time before Ava. I know when I was prego I worked 3 days a week. When I wasn't working I swam and practiced pre-natal yoga. But what about the rest of the time? I must have written in my journals, I could go dig them out. Maybe I had time to read for pleasure, not just for my latest project?

This week T gave me a giant, giant gift. He had to go to So Cal for part work, part fun and took Ava along. They left yesterday, and yes, the house is pin-drop silent, pardon the cliche. Mostly I'm just wondering what to do with the time? I have so many projects going on in my 8 pound brain that this morning I did morning pages for the first time in a week to clear out my head. I made a list of six things that I could do with my day:

1: yoga
2: research for latest book project
3: write latest book project
4: read one of the ten thousand books required for yoga teacher training
5: rewrite the fragments of a memoir I started four years ago
6: something else

This is my way, when I get stuck. I make a list of six things, and then, can you guess what I do?

Six things...guess. I roll a single die and see where it lands.

This morning, at 7:30AM it landed on #1. Yoga. Okay, do I practice at home or go to a 9AM class? How to decide...I flip a quarter.
Heads = head out the door
Tails = stay put

It was heads, so I went to Christopher's 9AM class. I will report, the practice thoroughly kicked my butt.

It's so hard when I have a whole day without even the limitations of a babysitter to figure out what to do first. Then what to do next. I keep telling myself that even if I do nothing it's okay. I could lounge around and pretend I like drinking in bars or something or watching prime time TV and it would all be okay. What I really wonder is what did I do with all that time before Ava? When there was nothing between me and an afternoon nap? This is a mystery. I mean, really, I must have done something with all that time.

When I got home from yoga I ate on the back deck and enjoyed the beautiful San Francisco sunshine. I feel alive now that the sun is back after it's long absence. What am I going to do next, I wondered, and rolled that die again.

#3: write on my book

Of course I had to clean the kitchen first, eat more frosting on the Easter cake, and procrastinate in a half dozen ways before I was ready to write. To my utter surprise, the words were there, waiting to be written.

Now though I am rambling, and procrastinating, because it's time for #2: research for book.