I’ve decided that my sabbatical begins this week, but I’m still going to work, which seems to be confusing people. To me, it makes sense: if it’s possible to go on vacation and never truly leave work behind, I imagine it’s possible spend an entire sabbatical year scurrying around in the same mental ruts I’d hoped to exit. I can easily see myself remaining calendar-obsessed, task-oriented, ambiguously pressured to produce, and in near-constant mental rehearsal for future events.
Taking a year away from paid employment does not equal the cessation of necessity. There will always be tasks and appointments associated with the work I choose to do, owning a car and a house, having pets, being in relationship with family, friends, and community, and having a physical body. Taking a year away from my job gives me the opportunity to change the way I relate to these tasks, but it doesn’t guarantee that I will, which is why I’ve decided to take the training wheels off early and get used to thinking in a new way. Namely, to be more like the Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs and less like Pac-Man.
My m.o. is to chomp through tasks like Pac-Man. It is like a fun game for me. But I’ve heard about the importance of resting, so sometimes I stop chomping and just sit on the couch, jaw ajar, not chomping but ready to chomp, thinking thoughts like, “Whatever you do, don’t chomp!” This is not what they call deep resting.
I would like to be more like the fabled Goose. I’ve always thought of that story as a warning against greed and general human folly, specifically the exploitation of a precious resource, but perhaps it could just as easily be about exploiting ourselves. While we wouldn’t do anything so dramatic as cutting ourselves wide open, we are prone to frequent over-extraction of our own energy to the point of depletion.
I am realizing that I am both the slave master and the slave, the greedy men and the gold-laying goose. But I could never fault the goose for taking a rest, for taking her time, because I know that there are mysterious processes at work inside of her that I can’t see. I could never fault the goose for stepping out into the open air, maybe even taking a swim, after years of being cooped up in a stuffy barn with artificial light, formulated foods, and steroid injections. (Note: if you’re just tuning into this metaphor, I am the evil factory owner, not my employer.) I could never fault her for preening her feathers, blinking at the setting sun, and taking a nap. I understand that what she is doing while not doing anything is magical.
By the way, these golden eggs I plan to lay? I’m not talking about my magnum opus here. I’m talking about scooping the litter box. I’m talking about composing an email. I’m talking about making dinner. All of these tasks live inside of me already, right alongside my magnum opus, ready or not ready to come into the world. They are not an endless army of dots to chomp through on my way to nowhere.
“No one could fault the goose,” I say to myself as I take a deep breath and look up at the clouds; as I decide that a certain task can wait until tomorrow; as I peek out the factory door at the natural world that awaits me. It might not be as safe, but it is surely my home.
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