So, last weekend, I went away for a day. I needed a break—a daycation. I needed not to think about what anyone else needed, or anyone else’s troubles.
I didn’t pack my bag the night before, but I knew I could quickly gather what I needed for one day and a night. It had been a lot harder to unpack the truth when I declared that I just needed to go. It’s always a million times harder to ask for what I need than it is for me to absorb and fulfill what everyone else does.
That’s not new.
My husband has accused me of something so often, that all it merits anymore is an eye roll as I turn and walk away. He says I “fiddle fart”. I do. To fiddle fart is to take much longer to do something small than necessary, by creating mini tasks along the way.
I almost always do this when I am going to spend time on my own. I think he thinks it’s because I lose track of time, or care about things that are insignificant.
Last weekend was no different. I knew exactly what to pack. I started putting cosmetics, toiletries, and meds in a case the night before. I knew what I was going to wear the day I left. I even packed the blister care bandages I knew I was going to need, because I even though I insisted I had been breaking in the green Doc Martens long enough, I knew by the end of the day, my feet would say otherwise.
I quickly threw all of my planned items into my duffle. Then I thought about accessories. No great trip away for yourself can be accomplished without accessories. And in the midst of trying to get out the door for time on my own that I really needed, I decided to just grab “that one necklace”. I was sure it was in a box, inside my jewelry cabinet, along with all of my other Celtic knot jewelry.
It wasn’t. I silently started taking things out, searching, and putting things back in. I couldn’t find it. I decided I had probably put it in another location, in another room. No.
I could have just written it off. I kind of have a habit. I have dozens of other necklaces and pendants I could have worn. 
At this point, my husband seemed to notice I was off track. I was fiddle farting.
“What are you looking for?”
“Nothing. It’s not important.”
“Then get going.”
“I will! Just give me a minute.”
“What are you looking for.”
“I’m looking for my trinity knot necklace.”
“Isn’t it hanging from your rear view mirror.”
“No.” And I felt my eyes rolling. Does he not even know what kind of knot I mean? That can’t even be.
“You’re wasting your time!”
“But it’s my time, now isn’t it?”
I knew he was right. I was fiddle farting. I was fixating on something I didn’t need to care about. I quickly settled on something else, and nearly broke my neck heading out the door.
Before I left, he reminded me that I could listen to any music I wanted to. Ordinarily, that would be enough motivation, but I know something better than he does. I have our daughter so well “trained” that she already loves listening to mommy’s music. For the two months satellite radio had a U2 station this summer, she never once asked me to change it.
Nevertheless, I finally got on the road, and determined that I would listen to things I hadn’t made time for during that two-month-long Bono holiday. The new Snow Patrol album—still wrapped in the factory plastic, and the most recent U2 album, in a much more attentive and focused manner.
They were good. It was good. I started thinking about the way the knots of motherhood seem to loosen when you get a few miles away. As a writer, I could already think of nearly half a dozen things I wanted to write about.
My daughter is in preschool three days a week, and has therapy the other two, but I almost never write whiled she’s gone. I craft. I surf the Internet. I sort through emails, and sign endless electronic petitions every day to satisfy my political and social outrage. I think for me writing requires a lot more packing, unpacking, and distance than simple constrained three-hour blocks.
That’s a completely lame excuse. Clearly hundreds of well-known authors discipline themselves to writing a defined number of words or pages a day. They churn out books like factories. Even with the time allotted for driving my daughter to and from her daily stuff, I could probably squeeze in an hour or two.
Granted, I wouldn’t get anything else done. And when you have a four-year-old Hell-bent against picking up even a single item, a husband who needs clean work shirts and socks, and used spoons left in glasses that need to soak for the gunk to actually come out in the dishwasher, packing and unpacking for writing is just one more task. And what if I didn’t get to do again tomorrow?
So, those “tomorrows” pile up.
I spend my time in the car, listening to my music, and I spend my day doing what I choose. It’s my time.
After a day of festival activities, I make my way to my hotel around midnight. I am in sore need of a shower.
I unpack what I need. The blister bandages on the backs of my heels have failed, and are nothing more than a squideged up, crumpled mess. “Good thing I brought more”, I think to myself. But then I realize, I haven’t brought a shower cap, and this rebellious red wreaks havoc on white pillow cases. I don’t even have a headband. I mom-bun my hair with a tie as best I can, hopeful my hair won’t get wet enough to leave the appearance of a full-blown massacre on the sheets and cases.
The next morning, I realize I didn’t bring my flat iron, or even that clever hot brush I bought on Prime Day. Again, I grab the hair tie, and do what I can to look presentable.
It’s not lost on me that I spent a ridiculous amount of time looking for that necklace, and I might have remember these other items if I hadn’t been fiddle farting. But it was my time to waste, and it was so hard to declare my need of it, that I most certainly know I was allowing the chance for the request to be denied—not because I didn’t want to go, but because it’s easy to give up on things when everything else is important.
I had gotten a text that our order hadn’t arrived yet, and we were out of my daughter’s protein shakes. She doesn’t like to eat for about an hour after she wakes up. I knew well what was happening when daddy informed her we were out. It made me wince from 200 miles away.
“Give her some juice, and yogurt instead.”
I lingered at the Super Target, where I picked up more protein shakes, and more blister bandages. I wandered into the imports store next door. I spent too much time there. I stopped for gas sixty miles out of town, and realized I needed some safety pins to mark holes a friend of a friend was going to darn for me in a couple of sweaters. Into the Walmart, where I tried desperately to find a cold, fizzy drink that wasn’t “soda” and wasn’t La Croix. I stopped again at my friend’s to drop off the sweaters.
My time was winding up. I couldn’t stretch it any more.
After I got home, my mind returned to searching for that necklace. I was resigned to the fact it had somehow been lost, and that I would just try to find a replacement. But that feeling crept in. It wouldn’t be the same, because I would always know it wasn’t the necklace I had bought myself as a reward when my self-published book sold ten copies.
You see, I wasn’t looking for a necklace at all.
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