Last night, a half hour before our guests were to arrive as T’s conference gets underway, I took a glass of wine and went and sat outside and looked at that near full moon. Again, I counted my blessings by starting with a little ditty that my mother taught me when I was young – “I see the moon, the moon sees me, god bless the moon, and god bless me.”
I felt a huge sense of relief that preparation for the evening was behind me, and that the upheaval of the last few days on the adoption front had abated, and that for a moment, I could take time to be.
Americans – I heard a Republican candidate saying on NPR – are a special group of people – we are the most industrious of any other peoples in the world. I know that to be true based on my own experience. But working with an international group of people, and living with an Eastern European, and having half of my family not from America, I wonder if that is a good thing or a bad thing. The candidate was saying that in other countries when the people asked for 30 hour work weeks and more government support in terms of healthcare and pensions, what they got was more government control and that is not good.
When my friend’s daughter was dying and her company was renegotiating her salary to bonus structure and were basically eliminating about 25% of her pay, she said in return she wanted more time to be with her family. More vacation time. More beach time. More love one time. More time to be.
I think the notion that we are a country of rugged individualists and go-getters, but we’ve been running for the brass ring a tad too much and now perhaps having a comprehensive health care safety net makes sense, even a thirty hour work week makes complete sense, because in the end, no one and I repeat no one gets to their death bed and wishes to have had more time at the office. No one.
It’s mid week – time to take a deep breath – and back away from the gristmill and celebrate another day of life.