I have decided to make my body my hobby.
Such a pretentious sentence. Or frighteningly obsessive. It certainly sounds decidedly unhealthy. However, I contend I am none of those things. Well, ok, maybe I'm obsessive, but not frighteningly so.
Hobbies have been on my mind in recent weeks as I have helped Molly, my partner, outfit the new greenhouse shed combination she designed, and had built by a Mennonite barn-building family. We've also prepped the back yard for even more garden space than we already have in an abundant plantable track.
It's damn hard work, sweaty and dirty. And really joyful to see the greenhouse floor fill with river rock, evened out for great drainage. Or the giant mound where we dumped dug-up turf five years ago get smaller and smaller as we carve away big chunks and load them into the beater garden truck to haul away.
I watch Molly measure and calculate, then cut 2 x 4s and plywood just so with a skill saw. She grabs the drill and next thing I know, there is a beautiful, sturdy shelf across the length of one wall in the shed, and a potting bench under the window on a shorter wall. In the aisles of Ace Hardware, I witness the wheels turning in her mind as she puzzles out parts needed to extend a nearby sprinkler underneath the corner of the shed and into the greenhouse. She's patient, making sure she gets it right, and confident once the decision is made. She never appears stressed or fretful - an amazing feat, in my mind, when doing projects involving power tools and plumbing.
Molly plans and executes the garden transformation with the gusto of an enthusiast. It is clearly her hobby. I am on hand to help. Happy to provide the grunt labor, but it is not my hobby. I don't pour over the pages of Organic Gardening. Or get a gleam in my eye at the arrival of seed catalogs. I can't remember from year to year what vegetables were in which raised beds. I don't have the confidence to build a drip watering system in the greenhouse.
The desire for a hobby is borne largely from the fatigue I feel from work at the office. It is difficult for me to leave the volume of tasks and frustrations with colleagues unwilling to change behind me when I climb aboard the bus and leave the university campus each evening. The worries roll around in my mind, disrupting the time I have with family or to myself. I, too, need to build something. To grow something. To try new things and know that what doesn't work can always be scrapped and started fresh. I need to get lost in thinking and doing something other than work.
I decided last weekend to speak out loud about my desire for a hobby. As I listed possibilities to an attentive Molly, the final decision came from whittling away things I already do. Writing could be considered a hobby, I noted. But it's not relaxing. Reading I love. And have thoroughly enjoyed beefing up my collection the past two years of actual, paper-based books. But while I always have a fun book going, I'm also reading at any given time one to two nonfiction books because I consider it a requirement for both my office job and my writing vocation. So, reading is off the list.
As I spoke, I knew I didn't want to necessarily take on anything new. I'm not a person who functions well being pulled in several directions. Next, I considered how I ride bikes and walk great distances on a regular basis as a way to maintain my physical health. Suddenly, I pictured Lucy in a Peanuts cartoon leaning forward on The Doctor Is In booth and yelling, THAT'S IT, turning Charlie Brown into a tumbling heap as she discovers the answer to his malady.
Cycling and walking could be my hobby, but take that idea to the next level, and really what I'm attempting to build and grow with those endeavors is my strength and endurance. My body.
In the five days since making the decision, working out and planning my meals have been transformed from feeling like just more tasks in the long list of to-dos to downright fun. On my walks I stop to smell lilac bushes hanging over fences into the street and turn my eyes skyward to the crazy cloud formations. I have easily turned away sugary snacks and thoroughly enjoyed my unsweetened tea purchased at the end of a workout. Taking no less than 30 minutes to stretch has been relaxing and inspiring.
Calling working out and nutrition a hobby is really just semantics. But as a person deeply moved by words, it's one of the best changes in mindset I've made in a long time.
Such a pretentious sentence. Or frighteningly obsessive. It certainly sounds decidedly unhealthy. However, I contend I am none of those things. Well, ok, maybe I'm obsessive, but not frighteningly so.
Hobbies have been on my mind in recent weeks as I have helped Molly, my partner, outfit the new greenhouse shed combination she designed, and had built by a Mennonite barn-building family. We've also prepped the back yard for even more garden space than we already have in an abundant plantable track.
It's damn hard work, sweaty and dirty. And really joyful to see the greenhouse floor fill with river rock, evened out for great drainage. Or the giant mound where we dumped dug-up turf five years ago get smaller and smaller as we carve away big chunks and load them into the beater garden truck to haul away.
I watch Molly measure and calculate, then cut 2 x 4s and plywood just so with a skill saw. She grabs the drill and next thing I know, there is a beautiful, sturdy shelf across the length of one wall in the shed, and a potting bench under the window on a shorter wall. In the aisles of Ace Hardware, I witness the wheels turning in her mind as she puzzles out parts needed to extend a nearby sprinkler underneath the corner of the shed and into the greenhouse. She's patient, making sure she gets it right, and confident once the decision is made. She never appears stressed or fretful - an amazing feat, in my mind, when doing projects involving power tools and plumbing.
Molly plans and executes the garden transformation with the gusto of an enthusiast. It is clearly her hobby. I am on hand to help. Happy to provide the grunt labor, but it is not my hobby. I don't pour over the pages of Organic Gardening. Or get a gleam in my eye at the arrival of seed catalogs. I can't remember from year to year what vegetables were in which raised beds. I don't have the confidence to build a drip watering system in the greenhouse.The desire for a hobby is borne largely from the fatigue I feel from work at the office. It is difficult for me to leave the volume of tasks and frustrations with colleagues unwilling to change behind me when I climb aboard the bus and leave the university campus each evening. The worries roll around in my mind, disrupting the time I have with family or to myself. I, too, need to build something. To grow something. To try new things and know that what doesn't work can always be scrapped and started fresh. I need to get lost in thinking and doing something other than work.
I decided last weekend to speak out loud about my desire for a hobby. As I listed possibilities to an attentive Molly, the final decision came from whittling away things I already do. Writing could be considered a hobby, I noted. But it's not relaxing. Reading I love. And have thoroughly enjoyed beefing up my collection the past two years of actual, paper-based books. But while I always have a fun book going, I'm also reading at any given time one to two nonfiction books because I consider it a requirement for both my office job and my writing vocation. So, reading is off the list.
As I spoke, I knew I didn't want to necessarily take on anything new. I'm not a person who functions well being pulled in several directions. Next, I considered how I ride bikes and walk great distances on a regular basis as a way to maintain my physical health. Suddenly, I pictured Lucy in a Peanuts cartoon leaning forward on The Doctor Is In booth and yelling, THAT'S IT, turning Charlie Brown into a tumbling heap as she discovers the answer to his malady.
Cycling and walking could be my hobby, but take that idea to the next level, and really what I'm attempting to build and grow with those endeavors is my strength and endurance. My body.
In the five days since making the decision, working out and planning my meals have been transformed from feeling like just more tasks in the long list of to-dos to downright fun. On my walks I stop to smell lilac bushes hanging over fences into the street and turn my eyes skyward to the crazy cloud formations. I have easily turned away sugary snacks and thoroughly enjoyed my unsweetened tea purchased at the end of a workout. Taking no less than 30 minutes to stretch has been relaxing and inspiring.
Calling working out and nutrition a hobby is really just semantics. But as a person deeply moved by words, it's one of the best changes in mindset I've made in a long time.
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