Redefining Leisure
There have been innumerous times when I’ve recollected these
lines by W.H.Davies, I admit, usually with a sigh.
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
While I love the entire poem, Leisure, these words
have stuck with me over the years.
It was a crisp Spring Sunday, I finally had managed to sell
my plans for our backyard to my husband. The detailed plan involved planting three
trees, an avocado and a lemon on the ground, kumquats in a container (yes, that’s
a tree), a vine over the fence, a couple of flowering hedges along the driveway
and a few more miscellaneous plants. Oh what an effort it took. But that deserves
a blog post on its own.
We head out to the nearest Home Depot, going around and
making a mental note of what’s available and where, before pushing a trolley
all around the place. We run into a colleague of mine who was there with his
family, shopping for some vegetable plants. We chat for a bit, and I shared my
experience of growing tomatoes from seed last year (which the dear husband was
nice enough to point out turned out ‘pretty sour’). We talk a little longer
about my newfound love for perennials & his struggle with gofers before
saying good-bye.
We roamed around for 30 more minutes or so, and were able to
pick most of what we wanted, a flowering hedge plant – Indian hawthorne, a
jasmine vine and a self-pollinating dwarf avocado tree (Based on my
calculations, we’d have to swap the living area & backyard if we were to
buy a regular sized avocado tree). All except for an elusive pink-red hibiscus,
the store only had red. Thankfully, I had taken a flower from one of our
existing plants to match the shade, and well, it didn’t.
We checked out, loaded the plants carefully into our sedan, had
a late lunch outside, aerated the plants by opening the trunk for a minute, and
drove back home. It was just the routine after that, some chores, and meal prep
for the upcoming week.
It’s been a few days since, and
I fondly remember how we spent that day. It wasn’t as exciting as a trip to the
Grand Canyon or Vegas, which are both great, obviously. Neither was it like binge
watching Madam Secretary on Netflix Friday night, which I admit is hard not to
indulge in. But this was a different kind of leisure, an old fashioned one, if
I may use the term. It was a lazy stroll on a pleasant Sunday, meeting people
on the way and heading back home.
I couldn’t possibly do nothing
and simply stare as our cattle friends (nope, Netflix doesn’t count), but I’d
happily settle for going out and spending time without checking the watch
whether we are late for the next thing on the seemingly bottomless to-do list. This
is modern day leisure, W.H.Davies and I dig it.
Thus wrote Suganya @ 6:31 AM
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