leisure/leh-zhoor

The USA made two fun goals today. I'm looking forward to becoming a soccer - I mean, futbol, fan in Italia. Hopefully my two teams, USA and Italia, will make it to the quarterfinals or something. My friend R the Roman advises watching the matches in our flat, with a case of beer and lots of snacks, but I chose the 1-bedroom w/out AC over the studio with AC and a deck. This might mean that I will spend molto tempo in cool dark churches or perhaps on hunts for Italian basements.

This trip is a gift, un cadeau - sometimes I remember the French word for things. How infrequently do we pause to take stock of our status. Even when home for the holidays there is bustle and errands and family dinners to occupy the exterior and interior schedules. How would our world be different if we had more leisure time? By "leisure" I do not mean "consuming Cheetos whilst watching daytime television" though I also do not mean to denigrate those who do. But - leisure could mean so much more. It could mean exercising our creativity, which according to the wise Julia Cameron is a part of each one of us. A precious few lucky people have found a profession that feels like creative play. For the others of us - we plant gardens, cook delici-mous meals, make greeting cards, paint on tiny canvasses while we dream of splattering an entire wall with color. Recently one of my favorite expressions of self and creativity was removed from the world - a neighbor's full-size (or perhaps even larger) teepee. Made of tall skinny poles, at least 20 feet tall, there was no cladding so it had the effect of an indoor-outdoor room. Vines grew around the outside and I'm sure the dappled light and shadow effects inside were heavenly. I always wanted to go inside.

That's the other element of creativity: making from naught, and inevitably things return to naught. I recall my mother discussing her bread bowl, a gift from her potter friend, which was irreplaceable in the sense that the potter's wrists were no longer healthy enough to throw such large pieces. Mom noted in the same sentence that while she preferred to wash it - in case it should break, she would only have to resent herself for all eternity - she also recognized the transience of objects, of materials, of our very selves. Enjoy it while you can, is the lesson. Wear the white clothes and use the good dishes. Get out the paint and splatter it. Live your joy.