The Riverside Press-Enterprise
The new year can be a time to pursue elusive activities
As the New Year rolled around I — like everyone else
— started thinking about what I need to get done in 2024: The weight I need to lose, the changes and improvements I need to make internally and externally, and the books I need to write, because I’m an author who is almost 70 and time is running out.
But this year, friends, I’m going to resist this line of thinking because I am tuckered out. Perhaps it was making a major home move at the age of 69 this past summer, or perhaps it was bringing out two novels two years in a row. Or maybe it was the political crises in this country and abroad. A possible suspect for my tiredness might even be the several wonderful creative writing classes I taught online during the summer and fall, although the writers were incredible. “Teaching never makes me tired!” I thought. But then my utterly fantastic magical realism class ended in early December. The holidays rolled around, and instead of thinking, “Now what?” I just kept on feeling like I wanted to sit and look out the window and watch the clouds move over the mountains.
People ask me what my next writing project is, and I have one: A joint memoir I want to write with my husband. We’re blogging about it. But we’re not quite ready to write it.
So, I’ve decided that I need to take a break. I am fortunate enough to have a pension (Thank you, University of California), so I can afford not to work full time. Not everyone is in that position, but even if you work and have other duties, you can perhaps lay off a little by taking a break from at least one task.
The word “sabbatical” is related to the Hebrew word “shabbat” (which means “rest”), and its English equivalent “sabbath.” This means, that if you belong to a religion that observes a sabbath, taking a break from work or a task, might actually be a morally good thing to do.
What does my sabbatical look like?
Well, first of all I’m reading books just for fun. I’m not going to review these books and I’m not going to use them as models for my own writing. I’m just reading them because they look interesting!
I’m journaling. I hate journaling sometimes, but if I don’t journal when I get up in the morning, I’m ornery all day long. So I’m trying to write a daily psychological data dump, when I get up, and gosh, it feels great.
Next I’m watching movies I wouldn’t watch otherwise. The most recent one was “May / December,” which I watched because my kid and kid-in-law recommended it. It’s fascinating, disturbing, and kind of uncomfortable to watch. Now I have a little bit of a better sense of what it’s like, being in your mid-30s in the US.
And — don’t laugh — I’m trying to learn to play chess. You need to understand how radical a decision this is. I have always been an absolutely terrible game player; I don’t understand the rules, or I forget which way to go, or I lose track of the goal of the game. I’m also awful at math, so if the game involves accruing points, I’m hopeless. But my spouse is a very good chess player, and somehow his passion for it has infected me. So here I am over at chess. com doing their tutorials and trying to learn how to play with the worst AI player, Martin. I have — with my husband’s coaching — beaten Martin once.
At time of writing, we are also watching a beautiful young woman player named Anna Cramling participate in a chess tournament in Sweden. We are watching her play in realtime while her mom, a grandmaster, narrates the game. It’s very fun and fascinating, even though I can just barely understand what they’re talking about. It also takes about 3 hours to watch the livestream. And I have to totally pay attention in order to follow what’s happening. It’s looking out the window on steroids.
Learning chess has no practical point for me whatsoever. I will never be very good, and spending time at this will not get the apartment cleaned, or do the laundry, or basically do anything, other than entertain me and arguably make my brain work. But that’s the point: The joy of learning about something that has just now struck my fancy in a “What the heck?” kind of way.
So here’s my advice for 2024. Read some books that won’t serve a purpose, other than to be interesting. Watch a movie you’d never watch otherwise that a much younger or older person recommends. Finally, let me ask you this: What’s a pointless skill or interest that piques your interest right now? Try it. Take a break from thinking you need to accomplish something.
Unless, you really do have to do the laundry. Which I have to go do right now.