time to write

I once wrote:

It's one of my favourite slices of life I wrote during the first month of blogging. It still rings true. The sense of time for me is often related to the seasons and work-life relationship. The summer time feels slow and ample. The school time seems fast and scarce. 

I know that the only time I really have is the now, the moment I am in, and sometimes I don't even notice it because my thoughts travel back and forth in time. Like everyone else I have 24 hours a day. I once made a list of things that I had to and wanted to and wished to fit in a day and it obviously was way more than my waking hours. Choices, choices, choices. What is most important? What to keep? What to let go? How much time to dedicate for each task? I do what I have to do, for example I can't skip school and can't live without eating and can't avoid commuting to work and back, and then I see what else I can fit in and how much, like ten minutes of exercise in the morning and fifteen minutes of reading in the evening or a short walk in the neighbourhood after dinner. 

One would think that it is easier on a day off, but it is not always so. Sometimes when I have a blank day ahead, I struggle with making the choice of what to do. Like yesterday. I was tempted to stay home, snuggle on a sofa, read a book and drink tea - one of the best ways to spend time. At the same time I thought that if I stay home, I would end up opening a computer and might get sucked into school mode again. Going to the city seemed like a good option. This meant getting dressed and venturing outside, a big effort on a school free day. Then two things circled in my mind that helped with the decision - Ruth's invitation to make time for writing and my memory of my solo writing marathon. I made up my mind.

Yesterday morning, after a forty minute train ride (during which I continued reading Alexander McCall Smith's The Dog Who Came in from the Cold, a book I have read on my daily commute this week) I arrived in the city, walked to my favourite vegan cafe, ate a morning porridge, and then sat and wrote in my journal for ninety minutes. Something might grow out of those pages of words (or not) but this is not the main point. The important thing is that I took the time to write.  After this I walked some more, visited a photo exhibition, finished reading the book on the train and got home before three o'clock to make oven baked vegetables for lunch. 

One would say that the amount of time I wrote in the cafe wasn't much either but it is certainly way more I would have written at home where the chatting of family members or the domestic duty call of a vacuum cleaner and laundry or an invitation of a computer would have distracted me. Someone else might point out that if I hadn't taken the train I could have written for another eighty minutes (or even more with the walk). The train ride was well spent since I read. It might be interesting though to set a challenge to try one weekend, when no-one else is at home, how long I can stay seated and focused on writing.