BEING INVADED BY SPARE TIME
The spare time I'm talking about has nothing to do with "workaholics", that strange breed of persons who seldom experience the pleasures of loafing. Nor am I talking about the other extreme, the Yoga buffs, who can sit crosslegged and motionless for hours, hoping to refresh their minds and bodies, and striving for any higher plane of consciousness. They might argue that their meditations are important, too important for spare time. Just as I could say the same about napping, for example. But most Yoga people see little similarity between meditating and napping, while the workaholics see nothing worthwhile in either.
Someone told me once, probably my mother, that God didn't give us time to be wasted. If it was Mom, she was probably referring to Sunday mornings when I wanted to waste my time at home rather than at church. But spare time and wasted time aren't exactly the same. Spare time is something that most people look forward to; it only becomes wasted if they can't find something to do then. When I began taking naps after lunch, my wife felt I was wasting time. But after a few weeks she realized that when I was out of the way, she felt a new sense of freedom. So now when she asks, "Isn't it time for your nap?", I force myself to comply, but mainly for her sake.
Another valuable way people can use their spare time is to keep a diary. I've been doing this for several months now, and at first just finding a subject to write on stimulated me. Then when I saw that I was repeating the same old things, day after day, my accounts started getting shorter. Until one afternoon I realized that what seemed so repetitious to me about my life, might be interesting, or even awesome, to my family or friends. If they'd be kind enough to read it. Actually, after I pass on, my diary could be used to enhance my obituary. It might be a little long, but the only short obituaries I can tolerate are other people's.
I think my wife secretly admires me for the time I spend on my diary. And well she should. I spend time thinking first, then writing, and finally rewriting so the right hand border of a page looks more even. (This page isn't too bad.) It's that, not clever ideas or engrossing descriptions, that I spend most time on. It's really more like playing scrabble with myself than writing.
But one thing I've noticed since I retired is that most people in my age group have the same socially-accepted pastimes. When I have any spare time, I often drive in town to get our mail. I enjoy driving, especially when there's a definite purpose behind it. Like getting the mail, getting gas, or buying a quart of milk. I'm sure we have a neighbor who's my age, retired, and doing the same things as me, but probably not in the same order. I pass him nearly every morning, in his fancy new green pickup, with chrome bars around its bed. And if I ever get a chance to talk with him, I've fantasized what I'll say. I'll squint shrewdly and ask if he'd just bought a quart of milk, to which he'd probably reply, "How did you know?" However, if he gives me a sassy look, like his buying milk is none of my business, I'll disarm him with a cocky smile and brag that I bought ours three days ago. And if he gets nasty about that, I'll mention that the chrome bars around his pickup bed look crummy.
It's retired men like him and me that like to keep active. I'm sure that neither of us are couch potatoes, glued to our TV sets or computers. I usually watch sports on weekends, and during the ads or halftime I play Solitaire on my laptop. Either way I'm keeping my mind active, often excited. The only problem is my wife continually relates sports to violence. Like if golfers hit their ball hard, they must be mad at it. Or long-distance swimmers are only out to thrash the water. Or all horseshoe players should return the shoes to the poor horses. And notviolently. I'm sure this is how she sees most sports, except for horse racing and parts of the Olympics. She likes these, but she becomes too emotionally involved to notice the violence.
It might be interesting to have a time clock, the kind I could punch-in when my spare time starts and punch-out when it's over. It would indicate that I was or wasn't in a spare time period, but not reveal what I was doing. I can't imagine someone publicly exposing all his or her spare time interests, habits, or desires. Maybe to the Guinness Book of Records, but they'll print anything odd.
Yet my wife and I might have a conflict with a time clock. She feels that I always have spare time, if there's something she might like me to do. Like rolling up my socks she's just washed. Whether I'm writing in my diary or glued to an important TV program, she enjoys interrupting me for things like that. If I had a time clock that flashed SPARE TIME only when I wanted it to, I'd reestablish my role as man of the house. Cum laude.
Or I'll be reading something for my next book review, and she feels compelled to tell me about something she's reading. But never when I'm at the end of a sentence, or a paragraph. And if I pointed up to a time clock flashing NO SPARE TIME, without losing my place on the page, she'd think I was more interested in my book than her interruption. Well, possibly.
But a time clock might have one disadvantage, namely it would expose the surplus of spare time I really have. I wouldn't mind it flashing SPARE TIME if no one else is around. I can dilly-dally for hours by myself. But if I'm being watched, I have only two choices. I can act like my hearing aid is off and ignore the people who have favors to ask. Or if it's my wife, I can tell her my leg is aching. Having physical problems should always nullify anyone's SPARE TIME on any time clock. And at my age, I've got a right to as many physical problems as I want.
I don't want to sound like I fear having spare time. I just fear having too much. I suppose I fear busy time, also, but there must be a happy medium. I just can't find it. When I'm busy doing work I enjoy or know is necessary, I'd like to have a few people around to watch, to take notes, or nod their heads. If it's women, I'd like sighs of admiration. And a wink or two.
I have several things I do alternately in my spare time that I'll mention. They are practicing the piano, going for a walk, and reading. The one that bothers me most is practicing the piano. I can go on my walks and feel better, or read a book and feel wiser. But just practicing the piano gets me nowhere. I continually make up fancy chords with the wrong notes. I know if I didn't practice, I'd get worse, but when I do practice, I don't get any better. The same with singing. If I don't practice now and then, my voice gets weak and scratchy. Only the dog wants to howl with me. But I can blame most of this on my hearing aids. If it weren't for that undeserved problem, I'd probably aim for a higher goal in life. Play piano at a bar. Learn to read a few classical pieces. Sing in the shower.
But to me, practicing the piano isn't wasting time. Not quite. It's having to wait for someone or something that means wasted time to me. It's true, I prefer to arrive at a place before a set time, rather than after. I want to be prepared for any crisis that might occur, so that I'm not late. But most times, the crises happen to the people I'm waiting for. At least they call them crises. Like they overslept. Now if that's a crisis, I'm the one cheated, not them.
I can remember only one crisis I was involved in that caused me to get home late. As a teenager, I got home late most of the time, but not because of any crisis. In this one, it was a friend's fault for getting my dad's car stuck. The next day, my friend got the tow-truck man, Glenn, mad at us, and that night Glenn chased me around the poolhall, calling me a bunch of names having to do with God, Jesus, mothers, and sex, but not in the religious sense.
That's one thing I learned in my year at our church college. I kept getting in trouble there, but the dean never called me any names. He just threatened to pray for me. A year later, I went back to visit, and had lunch in the dormitory. However, it didn't go too well, probably because I wore my new zootsuit. As I looked around at other tables, I saw a number of heads bowed. I guessed that some of the students and faculty, rather than call me a bunch of names because of my zootsuit, were praying for me. Or maybe against me. Nowadays, when I do something wrong, I'd rather be called names. I'm superstitious about prayers.
In the many times I've had to wait for someone being late, I seldom call that person names. Or tell him or her that I've wasted my time waiting. Actually, they are the ones who wasted my time. Worse yet is the person who won't apologize for it, as though his or her excuse is more important than the time I've spent waiting. My wife often suggests I take something to read if I know I'll be waiting. I've tried that on doctor appointments, and I guess it helps some. But if I have a 3 p.m. appointment, and I'm not called in by 3:15, my attention will often shift from the book I'm reading to my wrist watch. If I'm still waiting at 3:30, the book will be closed and I'll be gritting my teeth. Once I was gritting my teeth and bit my tongue. The doctor laughed when I pointed at it, like it was my own fault.
It's not that my time is always important and should never be wasted. Sometimes I'll sacrifice my time for someone else's, just to feel a sense of generosity. But whether I pride myself in generosity, or grit my teeth in anger, it is never as important as the principle of the thing. I try to tell my wife that, if she's come home later than I expected. Sitting in my chair and twiddling my thumbs is not the end of the world for me, but the fact that she let that happen is breaking a principle. I forget which one. But she really is encroaching upon my peace of mind and well-being. And also delaying supper.
I'm willing to admit that keeping busy can be more satisfying, and even more productive, than twiddling my thumbs. But that's saying that what I'm busy doing is more important to me than the person I'm waiting for. Why don't the slow-or-late people realize they are giving the very-time-conscious people a continual slap-in-the-face? Worse than that, they're shortening our lives because we fret so generously when they're late.
I know that time will never stop, but I wish clocks would. If we didn't know whether we were early or late, we could avoid both the anger or guilt that plagues us now. We might recognize the difference between busy time and spare time, but exclaim, "Who cares!" The workaholics might work too long and drop dead, and those people stuck on meditation might never wake up. But the rest of us would have it made. Timewise.