Today, we didn’t change from our pyjamas even when we went for a walk. Just piled the snow suits and jackets and layers of soft cotton and wool on top of the flannel and went outside to check if the little brook in the city park froze over. There were very few people walking. I doubt that the return of the cold scared them, so it must be the return to work that kept them inside. The winter pause is one of those times when I feel acute, tender anticipation of an end, like on vacation and in the last days of August and almost every day in October and even in Spring, when each flower’s season lasts for only a short while. It is always too short, always passes too quickly, always leaves too many memories, even when these memories are only of lazy days and long evenings and mornings when one doesn’t have to rush anywhere. I will never (I hope) understand settler American obsession with DOING something with every free minute. What did you do on weekend? What did you do on a break? This question used to make me anxious. Now I simply reply NOTHING. The point is precisely to do nothing, or not do anything. To stop, slow down, cease, lay back.

So, just for myself, let me list the list of nothings I did today:

fed my children breakfast

made myself a coffee and spent about 45 minutes sipping it and reading Jenny Odell’s Saving Time (finished Chapter 2)

played Dobble and Snakes and Ladders with kids (lost both)

made grilled cheese sandwiches and coleslaw for lunch

went for a walk with Elise (Julien refused and stayed at home) talked about climate change and whether people should have kids at all – I wonder if I am raising an activist or a nihilist and where is the line

came back home to discover Julien asleep on the couch

made hot chocolate for Elise and played chess with her (didn’t exactly loose, but would have lost anyway)

spoke to my mom on FaceTime

did a 5k on a treadmill while kids watched a cartoon

read some more of Moon of the Crusted Snow (it doesn’t get better and I wonder whether I should keep on, skim the rest of the book or abandon it altogether)

hit up dinner and then read to the kids before putting them to bed

also, checked my LinkedIn quite a few times – a gesture that becomes more and more meaningless and annoying.

Overall, well done.