Sittin' and Thinkin'

Character sketches continue, but I'm also on a deadline for a magazine article, and this is the week to get serious. But nothing is coming together. I'm stumped and getting frustrated. I sit and think, sit and think. And then I...okay, I admit it...just sit. Like my poster says.

It's one of my favorite fun things, this poster. I got it in college but particularly enjoyed it in my first apartment where it hung on the wall in my small kitchen alcove.

But then came marriage and a "real" apartment where "real" life began--and I questioned the poster. Was it too silly to display, now that I was married and supposedly more sophisticated? I guess I thought so, because I ended up giving it away. My sister Sandy gladly accepted it, framed it in style, and enjoyed it for several years.

Time passed, bringing lots of changes. We bought a house, raised a family, experienced good times--and bad, especially during my sister's prolonged illness. The days surrounding her passing were difficult. But, as happens at such times, "stuff" had to be sorted through. That's when the poster came back to me--happily and by request, but now with more meaning. The poster again claimed a place in my kitchen.

The quote about sitting and thinking, or not, is attributed to legendary Satchel Paige, one of baseball's greatest pitchers. Although the words are not grammatically correct, they are heart-correct, a reminder of a need for time out. Time out for a famous pitcher to rest his arm. Time out for a writer to capture that elusive writing thought. But also time out of life's busyness to share in and nurture relationships with those around us while we can.

And no amount of sophistication can teach us that.