Author: pataitcheson22

When not working, I'm probably writing, gardening, travelling, taking photos, reading, or going to concerts. I write poetry and fiction. I write about the world. And I leave some of my words here.
blog, Pat Aitcheson writes, writing process

Time, lost and found

pataitcheson22

how to find time for anything you want to do

blue anemone flower by Albenheim via pixabay
Albenheim via pixabay

 

How many people say “I wish I had time to write/paint/play sport” but do nothing about it?

How many people have said to me “I don’t know how you find the time to write as well as work?”

Quite a few over the years, is the answer. I’ve said it myself. What I am really saying is, I refuse to organise my life so that I can do the thing. I’m making excuses.

Time is precious, finite. It cannot be manufactured, but it can definitely be wasted. It is like holding sand in your fist, not noticing it slipping between your fingers but bemoaning the slow reduction in the pile. With a little effort you could find a way to contain it, as far as anyone can.

Everyone has the same 24 hours a day, 168 hours a week, 8760 hours a year. Achieving something worthwhile, something that’s important to you, means making the best use of those hours. Whatever you want to do, whether it’s write a novel or train for a marathon, can only be done in small chunks. John Grisham wrote his hugely successful legal thriller The Firm in the time between hearings, while pulling the long hours of an attorney.

Write 250 words every day, and by the year’s end you’ll have 91,250 words. That’s a novel’s worth.

We underestimate the power of steady effort over time. It really does add up.

Free time + wasted time = enough time

Start with a chart

Yes, really. Start with a simple chart showing seven days with a slot for each hour. You can make one with a spreadsheet or find it on the web. Or you could draw your own.

  1. fill in essentials like sleep, work, travel, caring and domestic commitments
  2. add all the extras you currently do like exercise, entertainment, hobbies
  3. see where the gaps are

It’s important to be honest about what you do with your time. If you think all your evenings are full, consider how much time is spent on watching TV. Maybe even consider tracking actual hours watched for a week.

A 2015 survey showed that 31% of UK adults spent 11-20 hours per week watching TV. A further 39% watched more than 20 hours weekly.
The New York Times ran an article in 2016 showing that Americans watched on average five hours of TV daily, and 90% of that was live TV. We have DVRs and catch up TV, but we don’t necessarily use them.

TV is the thief of time

When I decided to start writing seriously again, I cut out mindless TV viewing and channel surfing. It wasn’t hard. There are a few programmes I like to watch, but I don’t follow soaps or serials (apart from NCIS, and even then, repeats are a real thing.) Working days were long and stressful, but I needed writing time. And reading time. And just plain old decompression time. I programmed in my writing time to suit my schedule. And I set the box to record anything I liked, to watch when I had time rather than when it aired. Let’s face it, Saturday night can be a lean time on the box if you don’t enjoy game shows and reality TV.

Listen to the sinking feeling

Did you sigh when you filled in some commitments? If they are optional, consider dropping them. If they are essential, be critical. Can you spend less time visiting a relative you see regularly? Could you listen to an audiobook on your commute? Do you look forward to catching up with that friend, or does she drain you? Pay attention and act. Limit time and energy drains, even if you can’t eliminate them. Your gut knows, even as your brain rationalises.

Night owl or lark?

All of us have circadian rhythms that mean we peak at certain times of the day. For many, that is first thing in the morning. Waking early might gain you the hour you need. But that might not suit you. You work shifts; you have small children who wake at five anyway and you cannot face waking before that; you’re narcoleptic before noon even with a double espresso. Maybe the later hours are your best time. If you can’t sleep, get up and write. It worked for me. I wrote this poem about insomnia during a sleepless, jet-lagged night.

Our time on earth is finite. In a year’s time we won’t remember the soap opera finale or the latest game show winner. But we can have an achievement to celebrate, which makes our lives meaningful. Be mindful with your most precious commodity.

Take control of your time and commit to the things you really want.

 

 

 

blog, Pat Aitcheson writes

Poor mum, rich kid

pataitcheson22

we are prisoners of our past

yogurt_LeFox
LeFox via pixabay

We all want to progress in life, don’t we? We want to improve, have more, do better. And of course we want the same for our children. Especially so if we come from humble beginnings. Recently I measured my progress using yogurt.

See that perfectly curated breakfast above? Bursting with protein, fresh berries and fruit, organic honey no doubt. It murmurs vitality and micronutrients and my body is a temple. It also says, I am well off. I can afford these ingredients and the time to make this hymn to healthy eating.

I don’t really have time for Instagrammable bowls of perfection, so I buy good quality yogurt with fruit and live bio cultures. My daughter watched me scrape the lid clean; maybe half a teaspoon’s worth. Any parent of older children is immune to the slightly pitying looks and sighs of their much cooler offspring, but I decided to play.

“At least I didn’t lick it,” I said.
“Ew. Why would you do that?”
‘To get the last bit, obviously. Don’t act like you’ve never done it.”
She rolled her eyes as she left the kitchen. “I’ve never done that. Gross.”

The yogurt lid of truth

I grew up in a large family where resources were scarce and you made the most of everything. Wasting anything that could be used was sacrilege. Hard work ensured my two children never had to cut mould off stale bread or go to bed hungry. We are comfortable. But here I am, still rinsing the last drop out of laundry liquid bottles and scraping tidbits off foil lids.

We are prisoners of our past. 

We cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what in the morning was true will by evening become a lie.
Carl Jung

It’s a struggle to change ingrained habits. But sometimes little things are the marker of bigger changes under the surface. Today that marker is a yogurt lid with perfectly good yogurt clinging to it, thrown away without regret.

There was never enough in my childhood, but things are better now. I can relax and allow myself the benefits that my children take for granted, because there is enough and I will not be left wanting. With that change of mindset my focus moves from fear to gratitude, a much better place to be.

It’s time to move on.

blog, Pat Aitcheson writes

Elastic – solid – liquid – smoke

pataitcheson22
pink daisy_Albenheim
Albenheim via pixabay

What is time, really?

Time creeps by on leaden feet. The clock ticks slow, only two thirty, hours before the end of work. The longest sixty seconds is the one minute one legged plank, the last minute of the push-ups. Muscles burn and waver and protest. That breathless moment before the rollercoaster drops, stretches in anticipation.

Then there are times that fly past, barely grasped. The kiss you longed for, the holiday you saved for, joys and pleasures that fizz on the tongue like a sublime taste of heaven. And then… gone.

It’s all relative, someone said. It’s all about perspective. It’s all subjective, no matter what the atomic clock tells us. We feel time is different, in different spaces, inside or outside our heads. We buy and spend, win and lose, waste and save time. Yet we also know, in our hearts, those spaces where we hide uncomfortable truths, that we do no such thing.

Time spends us.
We hurtle through life locked in a fourth dimension over which we have no control, save to alter our own perception of it.

I remember one of the longest weeks of my life. Time did not dance by and leave me smiling. Time ambushed me, held me down while events rolled over my head, an unwelcome tsunami of bad news stories. It did not let me escape.

Sometimes everything changes in a flash. Sometimes there comes a lightning bolt that does not fade, with the sure knowledge of thunderclaps and raging storms to follow, all at once and never ending, no mercy, time stretched on and pain sparking every nerve, and when will it all end?

In a minute. In a minute is a lifetime, and no time at all.

blog, garden, Pat Aitcheson writes

Numbered days

pataitcheson22
tulips_Skitterphoto
Skitterphoto via pixabay

I feel like a cool writer today.
I’m sitting outside under a parasol with a cool drink and my laptop, listening to birdsong and the faint hum of traffic. It’s surprising how easily you learn to tune out some sounds, leaving more room to hear cawing crows and squawking nestlings.

When we look back, these are the days we remember. The patchwork greens of spring burst with life and Demeter’s promise renewed, warm sun on my legs and a soft breeze stirring the pages of my book.

My daughter spends the day inside, hunched over her laptop. She refuses my call to come and sit out, to enjoy the sun, to simply be. She’s certain there are many more opportunities waiting for her. She doesn’t see the point, because the wi-fi signal is better inside and the sun is slanting in through the windows just the same.

It’s not the same.

I remember a scene from The Simpsons, with young Homer pulling hairs from his comb. Plenty more where they came from, he says, and we laugh because we know what he does not, yet.

The future is not promised and all our days are numbered, whether that number is large or small.

So I allow myself to enjoy a fine day like this, storing it up in memory. It’s a blessing to live it now and will be a future joy to relive it with a smile. I will turn it over in my mind like a smooth water worn pebble, warming my heart, hearing only birdsong.

audio, blog, Pat Aitcheson writes, poetry

Consumed

pataitcheson22
book on fire_StockSnap
StockSnap via pixabay

He tasted her mind and realised he was starving – unknown

listen: 

Dancing girls twirl bright and golden, limbs lustred to slip through the hands in a whisper of scented oils. A brilliant array, spread out to tempt a prince mired in jaded expectation. Perfect sweetmeats, empty glossy promises on the lips.

Bright. Gold. Red. Gone.

She is silent, an insubstantial shadow in the light of her better favoured sisters. Eyes lowered, plain garbed, unremarkable, she vanishes behind another dream confected in jewelled feathers.

He rises, leaves the orgy of consumption behind him, seeks her in the forgotten labyrinth of the palace. His hand stays her flight. Understood.

And so to a perfumed chamber. Purple and maroon, silk and velvet, secrets and lies.

Apparently submissive, her hand slips into a pocket. But when she raises her head, fire blazes defiance from her eyes. He steps back, hand on sword.

I do not refuse my esteemed prince, asking only that I might read to him first.

She opens the small volume, gold letters glowing on its spine.

And the universe cracks open and explodes before him. Questions, answers, songs for eternal ages, ancient wisdom and otherworldly beauty. His desert heart blooms, cool rivers quench parched lips. Her voice swathes him in clouds and galaxies and everything that has not yet come to be. Time sits at her feet and listens.

The prince savours thoughts, feasts on ideas, nourishes his soul, gobbling all. The moon sets; she does not stop reading. He is drunk on limerence, enthralled by wonder.

 

He wakes alone, faint afterglow of her words in his ear. How could this lyrical banquet leave him so hollow with longing? He did not know true hunger till he tasted her mind.

He had not understood.

A lifetime might not be enough. He searches still, for his hidden spirit with the phoenix burning in her eyes and dragon flames dancing on her tongue.