Worth

“Why I Work/I like food.”

— The sentiment on a Hallmark card that I bought 20+ years ago and have yet to give anyone.

It is Thanksgiving Eve in America—not a real calendar holiday but a holiday in practice. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving—a holiday that, while rife with the contemporary trouble of questionable tradition, is still my favorite. 

Thanksgiving Eve feels a lot like Christmas Eve—it is peaceful and quiet even though everyone is home—we are not working or going to school or teaching classes (I told my students they were dead to me until Saturday). The only stirring other than muffled rumblings of my kids playing video games is my husband in the kitchen making stuffing for tomorrow’s feast. And even that is soft-cornered.

Fortunately, we are not traveling or preparing the house for guests. We are just hanging out, doing our things.

I woke this morning with the overwhelming sensation of having no pressing concerns, nowhere to be, nothing to grade. My keystrokes tap along as if in slippered feet, an arrhythmic ballet toward something to share that is not about giving thanks or eating pie. 

All that is already covered.

Ironically, I am, on my day off, thinking about work—not teaching (that doesn’t exist right now), but the concept of work. And, asking myself, when is work worth more than not working? When is work worth my time?

I know that comes off as a privileged question. I am not asking this from a place of subsistence but with an eye toward self-actualization. 

Provided all of my basic needs of food, shelter, and security are met, when are the joys of being on equal to or greater than the joys of being off?

joy ⇔ joy

Early in my blogging experiment, I wrote about the welling joy I felt that at this moment in my life I could say to a friend sentences like, “Sorry I am late for coffee, my yoga class ran long.” That I lived a life that contained epic yoga and midday cafe felt like the privilege it was.  

Kind of like enjoying your off-work time and your on-work time. Equally.

So, provided all of my basic needs of food, shelter, and security are met, when are the joys of being on equal to or greater than the joys of being off?

When I, thankfully, want to be wherever I am.