Rainy Day Cupboards

Maggie and I were discussing our days. We had just finished up our piano lesson and were packing up music and notebooks. “What are you going to do this afternoon?” I asked the 10-year-old. “I don’t know. Free time, I guess,” she responded. “Mostly we have to play outside because apparently it is nice outside” she rolled her eyes. I could almost see the air quotes around the word apparently. Clearly, she had heard this a few times.

I laughed, remembering the “it’s nice outside” reasoning that my own parents employed throughout my childhood to get us kids out the door. Some things are timeless. It’s reassuring, really.

But that old “free time” dilemma got me thinking. It’s summer. What are we doing with a little more empty space in our days and weeks? It brings to mind that quote by writer Susan Ertz: “Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.”

While New Mexicans might wish for rainy Sunday afternoons even more than immortality, the tension between the feast and famine nature of most of our lives is real. We are alternatively too busy or not busy enough. And sometimes I think the toughest part is how to transition between the two with a bit of grace and artistry. It may be nice outside, but do we know what to do when we get out there? 

In these weeks since I returned home from South America, I have been wrestling a lot with the concept of time and how to fill it, spend it, use it. I have more time in the summer, for sure. My teaching schedule resembles Swiss cheese, full of holes and gaps and empty spaces. I have less practicing pressure. The days of sunlight (and heat!) are long and expansive.

On the other hand, the days of sunlight—and heat!—are long and relentless. I feel exhausted in my bones. I am trying to honor that, but the garden must be watered. There are hummingbird feeders to clean and fill. There is the daily question of how to manage things like exercise and house chores and, really, just moving, when it’s 98 degrees outside. It’s hard to think creatively and resourcefully when one’s internal organs are melting.

If we were totally honest, we’d admit this: summer, despite all her charms, is a tricky season. So is “free time” and those rainy Sunday afternoons. We long for them, but after racing madly through the world at 100mph, it can be hard to slam on the brakes and sit still. Which is why it might be time to consider the old “Rainy Day Cupboard” idea.

A Rainy Day Cupboard is as old-fashioned and charming and cozy as it sounds. It is also rather brilliant, I have decided, and might solve the dilemma of both “free time” and rainy Sunday afternoons. It might even put a new spin on the whole summer.

Because what I have realized recently is that I do not lack for ideas about ways to spend my time. It is only when my organs are melting or I am dizzy from suddenly screeching to a stop after months of spinning that I can find myself a bit aimless. That’s when it is brilliant to have that notebook full of titles of books I want to read, or people I want to call. I need that list of places I want to see, neighborhoods I want to explore, coffeehouses I want to visit. I need to be reminded that, oh yeah, if I had some extra time I was going to listen to that piece of music or look up that website, check out that podcast, find that Ted Talk. I need a cupboard of activities: that hike I wanted to take, that movie I meant to watch, that recipe I wanted to try, that set of pieces I wanted to learn, that letter I wanted to write.

Of course, there is a difference between obsessively filling one’s time out of fear and designing one’s day like an heirloom quilt of color and patterns. Productivity isn’t the question. Naps are amazing. What I worry about is when the answer to “What did you do this weekend?” is, I don’t know. Shrug. Nothing.

There is much to practice here. Sometimes this means allowing myself a bit more time reading while I drink my coffee in the mornings. Sometimes it’s a longer walk talking to my sister on the phone in the evenings. Some days with a lighter teaching schedule nudge me to look at the zazen schedule at the Zen center for an extra meditation hour or to find a yoga class to attend. The mountains might call out on an empty Friday morning; on a random Tuesday I find time to meet with a friend for lunch. I grab an hour to clean out a hall cupboard or to sort through a file of papers. When I return from swimming laps in the pool, still cool and wet, I pull a few weeds, prune the rose bushes, spread some mulch.

It's summer. My organs are melting, my listlessness runs high, my energy low. We wait for rain, the longed-for monsoons of the desert. Meanwhile, time exhales.