March is the month when I know spring will come eventually, but the with gray and brown and windy days are what we live with. Brilliant blue skies, fast moving clouds, sunsets painted with gorgeous colors. We still need jackets and hats and sometimes mittens. It requires patience to wade through the mud, to adjust layers, to trust that the bleak ground will begin to sprout soon. The birds know this, the dark mornings are already filled with their exuberant chirping.
In March I still want more time doing less, but I reluctantly begin adding spring tasks, easily portioned into short bouts of work. I’m working on the never ending cutting back of bittersweet vines and I’ve planted the earliest of the seeds that I start indoors. The way March slowly teases spring means that by April I will be very ready for warmer days and green growth and being outside.
Although I trust that I will slowly unfurl with spring, that my energy and motivation will sprout with the longer days and the joy of new growth, I also fret about all the things I need to do or should be doing when I’m not actually doing them. Most of the time I can move forward doing the many necessary daily tasks and making small dents in the less necessary but desirable projects, but constantly carrying that mental to do list (or a written one) often feels like the burden of not doing enough.
On days when I can see physical representations of things that I have accomplished, it can feel really gratifying. Sometimes I slip into my old productivity mentality, which I thought for years was a good way to measure my days. In my head productive equals doing something meaningful, useful, worthwhile, often from the long list of things waiting in my brain that I want to do, practice, or make progress on.
Separated from my personal associations, productive actually seems like a very reductive term, simplifying my time into what I have accomplished or made. We can say that rest is productive because it allows us to have the energy to do what we need and want, we can say that time with people we love is productive because we are growing our relationships and supporting others. Looking at everything from the perspective of productivity keeps us stuck in the mindset that doing matters more than just being and that we have to be moving forward and growing all the time.
Earlier this week I mixed up and kneaded two batches of dough for bagels. I find great satisfaction in making food by hand, especially if it is a food that my family eats and enjoys regularly. There is a small triumph in being able to create something that measures up to what we have often bought at a local bakery and I might be tempted justify the productivity of baking since we save money by making bagels at home. It is more valuable to me for the time to anchor in the connection of hand to dough to countertop to taste buds to heart to belly. For me, it’s the kind of work that is nourishing and satisfying regardless of productivity.
In the kitchen, trays of seeds are about to germinate on the shelf and bagels are piled on the counter, bread dough is rising on the stove, kids are making slime at the kitchen table. It feels cluttered but alive. Often this daily chaos can be as exhausting as it is meaningful and sustaining, so I return to rest, trusting that if I listen to the needs of my body and brain, I will have almost enough energy to take care of the necessities and when I’m ready I’ll be able to spring into action to do more.
Warmly,
Anna
You summed up a lot of my recent feelings very well in this writing. I find that this time of year is the hardest; going from this hibernating version of a winter self to a fast paced productive being. We're all like little germinating seeds needing warmth to spurt energy into growth. I think the ground is still thawing around me - which gives time to think about what needs to be done which is both exciting and anxiety inducing.