4/29/2015
The Lay of the Land
By Lyn Messersmith
One More Thing
Einstein is reported to have said that the purpose of time is to keep everything from happening at once. We’ve come to terms with the time change now, and last time I checked there are still twenty four hours in a day. So, why does it seem like everything is happening at once?
Because it is. Every day, someone insists on adding one more thing. Anyone with kids in school can testify that each department has suddenly realized there are only a few weeks left in which to accomplish the yearly agenda. One more track meet—yeah, we can cram that in. Trips to scholastic contests, speech, music, or drama competitions; don’t forget prom, spring concerts, and graduation practice. These in addition to whatever regular commitments your family may have; music lessons, community projects, oh, and your work, if anyone has time to do any.
Civic organizations and churches arrange fund raisers and yearly conferences for spring without consideration for their members’ already crowded calendars, or that ranchers are calving, branding, and fencing, while farmers are in the fields from dawn to dark.
Preparations are in full swing for the Mother Daughter tea, the Alumni Banquet, and Memorial Day gatherings. Who’s doing all the footwork for these? The same people that canvassed for donations to the After Prom Party, decorated for a graduation reception, harrowed the meadow, planted several hundred trees, baked ten pies for branding, and sang in the Easter Cantata. Some of them are also planning a wedding or family reunion.
Who has time to attend all these events?
Nobody, but they’ll go anyway, especially the ones who are too tired from preparing to enjoy any of it.
Who will step forward and call a halt—suggest to the school board, the church committee, the club president, pre-school teacher, or Aunt Susie, that the last thing any of us need is one more thing; another place to be, competition to practice for, presentation to give, event to plan, or occasion that requires buying new clothes.
Nobody. The ones who could make that case don’t have the time or energy. They’re already running on fumes, making lists of people to call with a reminder of the Relay for Life, and feeling guilty for missing the athletic banquet last week because it was scheduled the day of their chemo treatment.
An woman I know says that a diagnosis of cancer gave her permission to say no. To decide what it is that she wants to do, and will regret not having done, if her journey is shortened. To put herself first, for a change, rejoice in the ordinary, and discover the joy of simplicity.
Several of us were chatting over coffee after church the other Sunday. An elderly rancher mentioned visiting family in California a few years ago. “I swore I’d never go back,” he said. “They shoved us around the airport, and on and off of planes, like cattle going to market. Now I have a grandson graduating out there…”
“So, you have to go out for that,” someone said.
“Oh, I haven’t decided,” he replied. “About the only thing I have to do at my age is make the trip up that hill south of town and someone else will be in charge of that.”
This gentleman had traveled fifty one-way miles on two consecutive days, to spend time with an old and valued friend who happened to be in the area. That was his choice to make. So is the graduation trip, and I doubt he’ll allow himself to be railroaded into a decision by someone else’s expectations.
Granted, it’s easier to get by with setting limits if you have cancer, or are ninety years old, but we teach people how to treat us every day. Go stand in front of a mirror right now and practice your speech.
“Sorry, that won’t work for me. There isn’t room in the schedule for one more thing.”
It’s the truth. There isn’t a minute of room. Everything is already happening all at once, and it will, until we tell it to stop.
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