How to Keep Busy

When I want to have no demands on me at all, it is only those demands that keep my head above water.  Is it irony?  Or a deep universal truth?  Being alone, complete freedom of movement, is something I rarely crave.  Right now I am longing for it...  But in truth, it's not what I need most.

What I need, is people, and routine, and things to stop me spiralling in on myself: things that stop me from being closed off.

Baby, with her one word, is perhaps the least intellectually demanding "thing to do" right now.  I can't stop myself from smiling back at her.  She is so happy and busy.

Even as I'm posting this, she is standing here trying to hit the computer with a spoon.  Now she is distracted by trying to pull the strap off her biggest sister's shoe.  Now she looks up at me, beams, and chatters nonsense words.  Now the spoon is in her mouth, and her whole body concentrates only on that empty spoon.  She is teaching me mindfulness.

Unfortunately, her lessons in mindfulness for today have also included pulling some stitches out of my knitting...

And shredding a newspaper all over the living room floor...

But, you know, at least I have a working vacuum cleaner again.  :S