Slower class

Yesterday, someone told me this story.
A boy had a problem with his classes. He spent all his time studying and doing homework. What other kids in the class took one hour to finish, this kid took ten times longer to finish. He could not enjoy his life because he ended up struggling although he used all his time for school work. His parents were called to the principal's office to talk about this problem, and they ended up moving their son to the "slower class." After that, the boy completely enjoyed his life because he could finish work in reasonable time, and that gave him enough time to play and relax.

He was trying to get his father to play with him, but his father always took his work home and he said, "Sorry, I got to work, son." The child kept asking his father tirelessly, day by day, to play with him. One day the boy asked his father again, "Daddy, please come play with me." His father answered, "Sorry son, not this time. See, I got work to do," and suddenly his son answered him back, "Daddy, maybe they need to move you to a slower class."

...

Today is my husband's birthday. At the same time, this week is finals week, which means that I have three 15-page papers and three presentations due this week. My mind is running around like crazy between thinking, writing, cooking, cleaning, preparing a surprise, making PowerPoint slides, and breathing.




At this point, I stopped and thought about the above story. It was so easy being caught up in several things at once which at the end might make me frustrated. I could have had excuses to say to my husband: "Honey, can we delay your birthday celebration until Friday?" I could have felt disturbed and said, "That time of the year again! Birthday and finals week - the two do not match at all! Why were you born in the first week of December?" Or I could have done my paper thoughtlessly or written them angrily, saying "Whatever, paper! If you can write it yourself, I would not have so much to think about!"

All these activities, whether it's cooking or writing, are part of composing my life (yes, Mary Catherine Bateson. You hear me). Probably they will not be perfectly balanced, but I have learned that cleaning and writing an academic paper are not separate. Cooking and preparing a PowerPoint presentation can go together -in fact, they both involve having ingredients/material ready to turn into a beautiful/delicious "end product." Both involve using all my heart, mind, and soul to come up with something good.

As I stopped to think about it, I knew I had reasons to enjoy all these all-go-crazy things going on at the same time. Both school work and husband were two "verbs" (instead of "things") that had special meanings in my life, and I knew it would give me strength to do what needed to be done, even though it might involve moving to a "slower class." It did not matter, because everything WOULD be done. Without realizing, I echoed Donna Haraway that said we should start everything with love.