It happens to all of us, I'm sure. We're moving along in our routines when BAM! Suddenly more things are happening than we can process.
This year, for me it's called October. I thought I had the month nicely planned: birthday getaway, Folk Festival, James River Writers conference and a hometown visit combined with a law seminar for Tom. In between, writing and mosaics.
Then everything else started happening. Our apartment building is changing our TV provider, requiring choices and authorizations. My friend's mother died in the Bahamas, so the Folk Festival is out and a quick trip there is in. My pension plan is asking for decisions by Nov. 1. Mosaic projects have gone beyond "hobby" with requests and commissions. And with days alternating between autumn coolness and summer swelter, my closet looks like it exploded, mingling the Uggs and the flip-flops, the sweaters and the swimsuits.
Time for a time out and reorganization.
For me, that means more lists. Other people I know find order in cooking or a fitness schedule or just tucking in the head and plowing through until things calm down.
"Organization is the key to success," intoned the late Robert Simmons, trying to get a classroom of teens to focus. Sometimes, it's also the key to survival.
I often wonder if that mantra didn't also steer me toward fiction. Novels and stories, after all, are simply organized forms of life itself. Reading them or writing them takes chaos and gives it form.
Hmm. Maybe I can write my way out of October. Maybe I should write my way out of it.
Or maybe I'll just make another list or some vegetable soup.
This year, for me it's called October. I thought I had the month nicely planned: birthday getaway, Folk Festival, James River Writers conference and a hometown visit combined with a law seminar for Tom. In between, writing and mosaics.
Then everything else started happening. Our apartment building is changing our TV provider, requiring choices and authorizations. My friend's mother died in the Bahamas, so the Folk Festival is out and a quick trip there is in. My pension plan is asking for decisions by Nov. 1. Mosaic projects have gone beyond "hobby" with requests and commissions. And with days alternating between autumn coolness and summer swelter, my closet looks like it exploded, mingling the Uggs and the flip-flops, the sweaters and the swimsuits.
Time for a time out and reorganization.
For me, that means more lists. Other people I know find order in cooking or a fitness schedule or just tucking in the head and plowing through until things calm down.
"Organization is the key to success," intoned the late Robert Simmons, trying to get a classroom of teens to focus. Sometimes, it's also the key to survival.
I often wonder if that mantra didn't also steer me toward fiction. Novels and stories, after all, are simply organized forms of life itself. Reading them or writing them takes chaos and gives it form.
Hmm. Maybe I can write my way out of October. Maybe I should write my way out of it.
Or maybe I'll just make another list or some vegetable soup.