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Making
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Issue
Ten: Free Write
Scintillations
The Beach
Remembering
You
Julie Day
Current Events
Sex And The Country
Stirring Up The Dust
Letter to My Younger Self
More
Letters To
Younger Selves
Moody Girl
Photography
Cover:
Box of Skeletons
Hello
Pipe
Hive
Clouds
Pegasus
In Ireland
Subway
Guy
Poetry
Spring
A
Lesson In Wholeness
A
Child's Light
The
House That He Built
Summer
Night
Contributors
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Making
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Future Issues
Issue Eleven: Play
Issue Twelve: Synchronicity
Julie
Day
Julie
Russell
No
Monday morning ever hit with more chagrin and angst than the
first Monday when I had nowhere to go.
The irony, of course, was that I’d planned it that
way.
I ended a contract job right before a month long
vacation and hadn’t lined up anything new.
I was intentionally, purposefully, and consciously
taking time off.
But
I hadn’t prepared for the compulsion to be productive, busy,
and engaged in some activity that made money.
I wasn’t making money and I wasn’t planning on
making money in the short term.
I intended to complete my book that may someday produce
money, but not in the immediate future.
Why
do I feel that I need to be productive every waking moment of
the day?
What is this feeling to keep going, lest I get lazy and
sloth-like, and wind up a hermit surviving on macaroni and
cheese I squirreled away in my cupboards to avoid leaving
home?
Why do I have this urge to work and produce and
instigate until I fall apart from exhaustion?
When I’m not working and not busy the fearful voices
start in, asking scary questions: What if all the money in my
savings runs out before my company makes money?
What if my book doesn’t sell?
What if I can’t afford my normal cat food and I have
to use cheap stuff and the health of my cats suffers?
What if I never want to get a job again?
What will I do with myself?
How will I pay my rent?
I
know these voices.
They’ve been with me a long time – even when I did
have somewhere to go on Monday.
They’re singing a new tune of self-deprecation, but
they’re the same voices.
These voices do everything to make me feel like what
I’m doing is wrong.
When I’m working they tell me I’m not doing my job
well enough and that I’m not worth the money I’m paid.
They tell me that I don’t know what I’m doing and
I’m going to fail.
Now they have a new line:
“You’re really a loser now, you don’t even make
money to support yourself.”
I’ve tried to hide from these voices by being so busy
I couldn’t hear them and by eating until I felt stuffed and
sleepy.
When
I felt these voices starting to stir at 4AM on that first
Monday, I suddenly knew how to silence them.
After slowing down during the last month of traveling,
I knew what to do – I had to get out of the house and out of
my head.
For once I wasn’t going to eat compulsively or clean
out every kitchen cabinet to be busy, I needed to slow down
the mania by doing something intentional.
I
am taking the day off, I told myself.
Taking
the day off from what – you lazy bum?
The voices mocked me.
I’m
taking a day off from you, I told the voices. I’m
taking a day off from worry, from stress, from panic, and from
this compulsion to push forward full steam ahead until I
collapse.
The
voices didn’t know what to say to that.
I
was out the door by 6AM, driving slowly up the Northern
California coast to Point Reyes, admiring the scenery along
the way.
I watched the sun rise golden and pink over the bay,
watched an errant deer meander through a meadow, admired the
pensive lumber of cows in a field, and saw a flock of quail
scatter at the sound of my approaching car.
I
shut out the angry impatient voices, that mocked and taunted
me, and I shifted my attention to the present moment, savoring
the view of the coastline to the north.
I
came home relaxed, refreshed, and full of joy from my day.
Right
then and there I declared Monday as “Julie Day,” the one
day a week that I would focus on myself to maintain this state
of peace and grace.
The one day that I would give myself absolute
permission to do whatever I wanted.
On
Julie Days I drive to Ocean Beach in San Francisco and lay in
the sun, savoring the rare warm fall days.
I go to movies solo.
I travel by public transportation or on foot to parts
of San Francisco I haven’t seen before. I get in my convertible, put the top down, and drive along
the coast. And
sometimes in between moments I’m inspired to write a new
story.
Julie
Days leapfrog me out of fear and panic into appreciation of my
life the way it is.
Julie Day gets me into now – not tomorrow, not
someday, but today.
The voices still appear, they even get sneakier, now
that Julie Days are in the picture – they tell me I
haven’t done enough to earn a day off – I have work to do
first.
Sometimes I listen to them, and other times I snap out
of it and tell them to shut up.
I know the best thing I can do to quiet the worry and
noise is to step out of hiding and take the day off.
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