Now is the Time

Sometimes as I’m sitting with the kids, one on each knee, one on each side, one playing with my hair, I find my mind wandering: categorizing the emails to send, the papers to grade, the clothes to wash. I’ve always been a to-doer with tasks and projects and lists and goals who finds it difficult to carpe diem, if you will.  I think, “I don’t have time to seize the day, I have too much stuff to do!”  

Here in Sudan, confined to a piece of land in the countryside, I’m learning to carpe diem.  It’s nice as a verb, no?  Specifically I’m learning to seize the now.  My new mantra is “now is the time.”  Now is the time for teaching.  Now is the time for eating.  Now is the time for cleaning.  Now is the time for sitting with the kids.  Sit, talk, tickle, hold, sing, laugh, listen.  Not later.  Now.

surrounded, November 2009