Procrastadabbler

Sometime this spring I realized I work too much. Teaching is demanding. For every hour I spend with students, I spend multiple hours planning and preparing. And then there’s the committee work. And service to the profession and community. And of course scholarly work, meaning research to be done and articles and chapters to write. I’m not complaining. I love the life of an academic. But I can easily fill every hour of every day with work related activities; the thing is, I don’t want to. For six years I did that. As a graduate student we learn to work continuously. It’s the only way you get through a doctoral program in something less than an eternity. And then when we move into our our assistant professorships (untenured), we continue that workaholic pace. Afterall, we need to get tenure, and to get tenure we need good teaching scores, a publication record, and a solid service record as well.

And it leaves no time for a life. So much so, that I forgot what it’s like to have a life outside of work. As such, I’ve been reteaching myself– relearning what relaxation means.

I’ve taken up baking/cooking. Rather than reading yet another scholarly article or working on yet another paper, I meander through a cookbook and then actually make something. I’ve been focusing on chocolate recipes, much to the delight of my husband. I’ve mastered a flourless chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, and ultimate brownies. I tried lemon curd cookies yesterday. They turned out ok, but need tweaking. Today I abandoned the desserts and tried making tortillas from scratch. It was my second try. The first time they were awful. They all ended up in the trash. Today’s efforts were a bit more successful. About half of them were edible–not great, but edible. Not bad for a gringa who doesn’t have an abuela to teach me. I’ll try them again tomorrow to go along with the black beans and rice I’m also making from scratch (the beans are soaking tonight). Maybe I’ll even try a flan…

There’s also a Thai chicken recipe I want to try.

I’ve also been on a cleaning/organizing streak. I tackled two closets over the weekend and threw out four trash bags full of stuff. This evening I lined shelves in the laundry room and pantry. It took little time, but it made me realize that over the past six or more years, I haven’t allowed myself even that little time.

It’s odd how this domestic stuff is helping to ground me. I’m certainly no Martha Stewart. I don’t thrive on a perfectly arranged home. But I feel that by engaging in these homely tasks I’m relearning something about what it means to be human. By that I mean I believe one way in which we connect to others is through food and through our environment. By engaging in cooking and housecleaning I’m evoking what to me is an expression of caring.

It may also be an external representation of the housecleaning I’m doing mentally. As I seek a new research site and a way to move forward in my thinking and scholarly work, I’m beginning to see that the various pieces of my life need to be connected and in balance with one another. I’ve ignored the one for too long, now is the time to bring back the other.

But then again, maybe I’m just crazy.