I really like Nashville, my job and my friends. I’m excited that my mom and my sister are in the same state, and it’s a beautiful, scenic state.
I just have enjoyed this opportunity to live two dreams simultaneously so much. I wrote a book and made a big loop across the western half of the United States with my family in a motorhome. Sigh. I hate for this to end.
Sadly, though, it’s time to go home and back to my full-time professor responsibilities. This will post on the day we will get home. Sniff. I’m not at all sad about being back home, but I am moping about leaving this extended spring, migrating to new sights and people each day.
As you can tell if you read this blog regularly, I’ve been mentally preparing (and grieving a little) for about a month. That’s how I process endings. I count down and think about it, and when it happens, I quickly shift to the next thing.
One of the interesting things that I have noticed that I am doing is figuratively packing up and cleaning up. I’ve cleared my laptop desktop to get ready for work. I’ve been clearing out and organizing my photos – 2,800 and counting from this trip, but I’ve gone back to photos from 2012 – setting up systems for work flow, and regularly seeing email inbox zero. I’ve tallied summary lists of states we visited, national parks, and people.
It has felt luxurious to have time to think and order my to do list, but I think that is how I am preparing myself to ease back into a busy schedule. It’s how I hope to make the transition easier. It’s how I am trying to keep the sabbatical pace and peace when I step back into juggling work and family. It’s how I am preparing for the transition.
Lupine in Idaho
Weirdly, now that the end is immanent and even though I would prefer to continue traveling in our 300 square foot home on wheels, I am ready. I am excited about teaching an intensive class next week. I am excited about starting a new play therapy podcast (something I’ve had time to plan and prepare). I am excited about interacting with students again.
I’m still nervous about losing this happy balance with family time, but I feel better equipped. Actually, I just feel better.
Purrcy and Sunny might be sad to get home, too.
Really, aren’t those the best kind of endings? When you leave wiping a single tear because it hurts a little to go. When you look back because you aren’t quite ready to look ahead. When you avoid saying goodbye because you don’t want to admit that it is over. Aren’t those the best endings? It means that it was good, great even. It means it was meaningful and mattered. It means that something touched you deeply. It means that life is different, better, because of what you experienced. Yep, that’s the best kind of ending, so it must be a little sad. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be as good. I’m grateful to be sad about this ending.
God’s creation is a life-giving inhale for all of us, and Sabbath is the exhale.
My most important priority this trip has been writing a book. If nothing else happened, this was nonnegotiable.
For those of you new to the blog, my university granted me a sabbatical for the spring semester to write a book tentatively titled Creative Play Therapy for Adolescents and Adults: Moving from Helping to Healing. If you know counselors, marriage and family therapists, social workers, psychologists and others in the helping professions who work with individual clients and like creative approaches like play therapy, please recommend the book. It will probably be published by this time next year from Routledge Publishing.
I’ve been writing nearly every weekday, crafting words together, following my outline, and posting a chapter a week to my coauthor. It’s 15 chapters long, and that means that next week, I’ll finish. Yes, we’ve been on the road for three months.
It’s really exciting to see the end of a big project, but I have to say that I’ve really enjoyed this process, and I’m sad that it is ending. Our sabbatical trip won’t end until July, and I have another project planned for the summer, but this book project has been a dream for a long time. I doubt I will have the opportunity to write another book while living in an RV traveling the country, so the ending is bittersweet.
I realized a couple of weeks back that this time last year, I took my first writer’s retreat, also something that I had dreamed about for years. I spent two nights in a rented tiny house, and I cobbled together the outline for the book. It was productive, restful and a fabulous.
It got me thinking about doing a writer’s retreat again. I don’t need to outline a book now, but I do need an intense burst of editing, so I decided to do an editing retreat. We haven’t picked our destination yet, but I have a plan. I read a few blogs, listened to a few podcasts and here is my plan.
Set Goals for the Retreat.
I like to know what I am trying to accomplish, so these are my goals.
Solitude. Create a quiet space where I can commune with God.
Exercise. Move to clear my mind and think.
Work Time.Edit 15 book chapters and end with a polished manuscript.
Work Time.Finish art and permissions logs required by the publisher.
Creative Time.Balance the right brain mental work with left brain creativity.
2. Create an itinerary to plan the time
I’ve sketched out a schedule that includes all five of my goals for three days. I won’t bore you with the details of all of it, but here is a sample from the first day.
7:00 – Solitude:Wake up, Breakfast, Coffee, Quiet time and Contemplation (Add Music)
8:00 – Work Time:Begin editing; Chapters 1 & 2
10:00 – Exercise: Take a walk
11:00 – Work Time:Edit Chapter 3
12:00 – Exercise: Lunch break & hike; listen to writing podcast for inspiration
1:30 – Work Time: Edit Chapters 4 & 5
3:30 – Creative Time:unstructured (nap??
3. What do I need to do plan ahead?
Pick a date and make reservations. (I need wifi.)
Print itinerary & goals
Charge FitBit
Buy and prep food for the weekend. Make a meal plan.
4. Pack – This is my packing list.
Writing supplies – laptop, charger, markers, pens
Quiet Time supplies – Bible, journal, reading glasses
Creative supplies – book to read; watercolor pencils, dot journal, crochet, other??
Shoes – hiking and lounge; socks
Clothes and bathing supplies
Comfort items: blanket, coffee mug, pillow
Itinerary, goals and tape to post; clock that is easy to see
That might be more information than you want, but I found it helpful to pattern my original retreat after others, so maybe it will be helpful to someone. Having an itinerary kept me on task, but I made a point to build in lots of time away from the screen, too. I ended my schedule with this.
3:30 – Work Time:Post the final edited chapters
5:00 – Celebrate: Go out to eat to celebrate finishing
I like that I have an unambiguous ending to finishing the manuscript. It closes the chapter (pun intended) on this part of the project. If you listen, you might hear my celebration screams when it is complete! I’ll let you know.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? –
This week my writing process was seriously disrupted.
Just a fun photo that has nothing to do with being sick.
I got sick. The aches, the chills, the snotty nose. I coughed. I sneezed. Mostly, I slept. I did not type a word for a week. It was disappointing, but I was too sick to care.
I know for me that it’s harder to start writing after I break a streak, so I write a little nearly every day. To help you understand why this was such a disruption, I’m going to nerd out for a few paragraphs.
Three years and three months ago, I had a conversation with a colleague that prompted me to start writing daily. Most days it was something that I now call a journal, a place to write about my thoughts or plan my week. Sometimes it was academic writing. A few writing projects and unpublished manuscripts, and now that writing also includes blogs some days.
My goal was to establish the habit of writing daily.
Inks Lake State Park, when writing was easier.
I created a spreadsheet and logged my words every day with the goal of writing 500 words a day. In a quick, creative, stream of consciousness style of writing, I can do that in 15 minutes. Academic writing takes me about 30 minutes. If kids are in the room distracting me (before headphones), it takes me two hours, but day after day after day, I type 500 words.
I have logged 500 words a day with very few exceptions for 825 days now. I averaged 18,277 words a month for the first three years, which is about 609 words per day, but the goal was always just 500 words. (I did warn you that I was going to nerd out.)
That’s not bad for someone with a full-time job, three homeschooled kids, and aging parents.
The first year, I wrote every day for 365 days straight, then I made myself skip a day to prove that I could get back to the habit. Even now, after more than three years of daily writing, I’m afraid that if I miss a day, I’ll lose the habit. It’s not a rational fear, but that habit is important to me. All things writing for me hinge on that habit. Writers write, after all. That’s how I can call myself a writer.
The beauty of Big Bend National Park… where I mostly slept.
Have you noticed that many of these posts are around 500 words?
When my publisher approached me about writing a book, I had a subject (since it was based on a presentation) and a daily writing habit. Of all the scary things about writing a book, finishing the manuscript was not one of my concerns because I knew 500 words a day would add up to a manuscript. In fact, it adds up to the length of a novel (50,000 words) every 100 days. My publisher wants a 70,000 tome, so that means 140 days of writing 500 words a day. I knew I could do that easily on a six-month sabbatical.
Since I have the luxury of time away, I’ve revised my plan. I schedule two hours in the morning for writing, and my project goal is 900 words a day, five days a week, completing a chapter a week. For accountability, I post the chapter to my coauthor on Fridays. Doing that finishes the draft manuscript in 15 weeks. My fancy spreadsheet now turns the daily word count box green when I hit my word count goal. (I’m in the liberal arts, so the spreadsheet does all the math, too!)
But I slept through several days this week, waking up to blow my nose, refuel on cough medicine and groan. I didn’t start working on my chapter until Thursday. THURSDAY. I’ve been humming along in the security of this daily habit, but in Texas terms, I got bucked off the writing bronco.
New Mexico out the RV window. Quick glimpses were all I saw.
Thursday was a driving day, so I sniffled and tapped away on the laptop while the cactus and dust of New Mexico blurred past the passenger side window. I knew I had to start and get something done. I typed for two hours. Then two more hours. Then about 30 more minutes.
I have a video that I downloaded from You Tube that touts being good morning music. The video is exactly two hours, and when I put on my noise reducing headphones (a must when living in an RV with four other people), I know without looking at a clock when my two hours of writing time is over, because the humming instrumental sounds stop. My family also knows that if the headphones are on, they cannot talk to me unless it is an emergency. I think that my brain is now trained to equate that music with focused writing, which is a nice bonus.
The day I am writing this blog post is Friday. The next day. I sound like croaking frog, and you don’t want me to describe the gunk in my tissues. I still have a lingering cough. I feel much better, but not 100%. Still…
I finished my chapter!
Yes, you read that right. Despite not writing for 7 days straight and still not being well, I finished the chapter in two days, and I hit my average weekly words on the manuscript. And, I’m typing a blog post to boot.
I’m stunned, but not surprised that this happened. You see, since I’ve logged my writing words for so long, I know my patterns. Almost every time I miss a writing day or two, I have a jump the day I come back. I don’t plan this. I’m not trying to catch up. Some days that I miss are intentional now. Even then, I have a bump in word count when I get back, so that it literally all averages out. Pushing through when I need a break, I write less and less. But after a break, I write a lot more.
I think that is what is happening during sabbatical in other ways, too. By taking time away my normal work and routines, when I return, I anticipate that I’ll have a surge of new projects I want to get done. By having time away to think and be creative, I’m actually laying the groundwork for an increase that means even with months away, it all averages out.
You learn to write by writing. It’s a truism, but what makes it a truism is that it’s true. The only way to learn to write is to force yourself to produce a certain amount of words on a regular basis.
William Zinsser in On Writing Well
So, here’s the pattern I notice. I established a habit that created a consistent process for writing. Sometimes, that process gets disrupted. This week it was because I was sick. Because the process is established – as long as I restart – I naturally and effortlessly make up for the part I missed. It hinges on the habit.
Did you notice that this blog was about 1,100 words? How does that happen?
If you want to follow our travels and my meandering thoughts, subscribe to have the posts delivered to your inbox.
This week as we have paused our travels to camp, I have done a lot of looking. I’ve looked for those pesky racoons that ransack campsites while we sleep. (Tim is a seasoned camper, so he makes sure we have everything put away, but others near us haven’t tucked food away to their messy frustration the next morning.) I’ve looked for the live armadillos that Tim and the kids spotted walking back from the river. I’ve looked for the spotted deer brought here as exotic animals from India, the golden cheeked warbler, and the seven sisters constellation. My near-sighted eyes haven’t yet seen these things that are all around me.
Wildlife I have seen. Deer.
Ants hauling leaves to their nest.
Squirrels
I’ve also spent a lot of time looking at my laptop, typing words into a manuscript and editing it into the format that my publisher requires. Between thoughts, I glance out the window of our motorhome as the giggling kids run or scooter past with their new friends. Here, staring at the computer screen, I see what isn’t fully developed yet. I see possibilities. This is my strength because it doesn’t rely on weak eyesight. Maybe I developed this skill as my young child eyes squinted in vain to see what the eagle eyes in our family saw easily. I developed vision to compensate for sight.
We have been traveling for eight weeks now, and it strikes me that we see differently depending on our speed of travel. Sometimes, we rush from one thing to the next as if we have a list of things, and we want to check the box as viewed. Tourists. Or, we only see the destination on the map, and we miss the blur of things passing our vehicle windows.
Other times, we slow down and notice the edges of flower petals, the white bluebonnets, the horseshoe tracks on the trail, or the bald cypress roots tangled near the water. In those moments, we breathe deeper, sigh with contentment and savor moments of holding hands.
ZA: Mom, I want to hold your hand.
Me: Oh, that makes my whole day!
ZA: I knew you were going to say that.
Me: I hope so. I want you to always have the memory that I like being near you.
ZA: That’s getting old.
Me: That will never get old, even when you do.
ZA: (smiles) Well… I love you, Mom.
It seems that when we look at things up close, we can’t help but dream of possibilities. The little things make life bigger.
I’ve spent the last decade rushing around to check boxes. I love goals, so I love checking boxes. Finish another degree. Check. Have babies. Check. Find a great job. Check. Get a book contract. Check. Wear myself out rushing to get it all done. Check.
Sunny
The last eight weeks, I have had a chance to slow down, squeeze our family and pets into a small space, and really see our big backyard. I think that the best life isn’t either-or, it’s both-and. It’s not about giving up my lists to live simply, it’s about simply listing what matters. It’s not about moving at a snail’s pace and only scrutinizing what is right in front of me, it’s about slowing down for a season so I can enjoy the speed again. Is there much more glorious than a horse racing across a field for the joy of racing, beauty in motion?
Right before our night hike.
It’s both sight and vision.
It’s that balance that I have been seeking, and I’m finding it. Productivity and rest… and family fun. This is my sabbatical space.
“Speed can be fun, productive and powerful, and we would be poorer without it. What the world needs, and what the slow movement offers, is a middle path, a recipe for marrying la dolce vita with the dynamism of the information age. The secret is balance: instead of doing everything faster, do everything at the right speed. Sometimes fast. Sometimes slow. Sometimes in between.”
I am intrigued by the idea of minimalism, but since having kids, we’re more of maximists. If one is good, then four are better. The toys breed in dark closets while we aren’t looking and spontaneously reproduce. As we stumble around in a sleep deficit, having more of each thing means we might be able to find one of the things we are looking for. Yet, this sabbatical adventure means some serious downsizing.
It’s like moving, but we’re also limiting the quantity and weight of what we move. I’m a pretty serious packer, a skill I learned in college moving with a Volkswagon, but in an RV, every pound reduces the gas mileage and therefore costs money. We’re going from a 2,600 square feet house to less than 300 square feet for five people.
I have a confession.
This is one of the most appealing parts of this trip for me. I want our family to unplug from our fast-paced, stuff-packed life for long enough to really experience more simple living. I’ve caught myself asking, “What is the very least we need?” It isn’t 800 pens, 8 bottles of lotion, and more stuffed animals than I can count. I have a hunch it is much less than I think, but I don’t yet know where that line is. I hope we figure it out before leaving, but even if we don’t we can shed stuff on the way.
There’s a range of opinions in the minimalist movement ranging from counting and limiting every item down to paperclips to a more relaxed approach that emphasizes keeping things that are in line with your core values and eliminating the rest. This is probably where I fall. I’m not interested in limiting stuff just to limit. I am interested in less stuff and more of what really matters.
But I am only one of five people impacted by this sabbatical space. My 8-year-old, who I’ll identify as Z, was pretty upset that he couldn’t bring everything he wanted. I had been trying to warn the kids that they could only bring a limited amount of toys, and maybe I was a little too adamant, ahem. But, after we talked about what really mattered to him and pulling out his bin to pack, he realized he could fit it all. In other words, he learned to identify which toys he really valued and that he plenty of room for what was most important.
If only every teachable moment went this well.
I doubt we’ll ever fully be minimalists, but this is a great opportunity to experience what it is like to minimize our stuff. Maybe it’s a chance for me to learn to identify what I really value and see that I have plenty of room for what is most important, too. I have enough time, enough ideas, and enough energy. Well, that last one is yet to be determined. Stick around to see how that works out.
When you stop trying to grasp, own, and control the world around you, you give it the freedom to fulfill you without the power to destroy you. That’s why letting go is so important: letting go is letting happiness in.
