On knowing when to quit

and take a moment to look out the window

When is “all the doing” too much? When do you push on and when do you give up?

It’s Saturday morning and Janyce is sitting beside me on the couch drinking coffee and merging our two “to-do” lists together.

“Kris, can I drink my coffee before you start? Can I just have a moment?” she says.

“No you can’t. I don’t have a moment. I don’t know where you think all these moments are?” I say.

I’ve actually been up for hours, staring at the ceiling fan first, which I’ve discovered makes this low whirring sound, like the engine of a small aircraft, and then finally getting up with the daylight, pacing around the house and standing at every window, watching the light change.

When I arrived at the house late Thursday afternoon, I sat on the overstuffed couch and looked out the front window. A lone female turkey was sauntering across the yard and bobbing her tiny head up and down onto the newly spread loam, pecking around in the dirt. I barely even registered it at the time, Janyce had to point it out. I was too focused on opening up my laptop, barking out the many items on my list.

“I actually think we’re in good shape,” says Janyce, looking around the big open room.

“We’re not in good shape,” I say. “We’re never going to finish. I’m too stressed out. I’m in a terrible mood again this morning and I’m not going to be able to write anything either.”

This is an old bad habit. I’m not sure where it comes from, but it’s an easy fallback for me of opening a release valve and letting out some steam with a litany of disaster proclamations and a million different ways of saying, “I can’t do it.” Of course, the thing is, I always can do it. I check off all the items on my list every time, and make more lists, all while cooking, while talking to a friend, while texting my kids, while planning a party for July of 2022.

Janyce doesn’t respond to me and is simply quiet. I watch her pick up her coffee cup and turn her head away.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” I say.

“Thank you,” she says. “Really, though, I think we can get a lot done today. This list is not that bad.”

I read somewhere recently that it’s important to not let joy fall by the wayside for your long term brain health. “Lapses in pleasure-seeking and feeling can actually impair the brain’s reward systems, like a muscle deteriorating in strength when you don’t use it.” I can see that. We actually had some fun planned for this long weekend, too, but so far work schedules and weather are already in the way and I can feel us veering off track.

When is “all the doing” too much? When do you push on and when do you give up? Not when you are just about to hit a major deadline, right? Not when you have commitments and other people are counting on you to do your part, right?

My ex-husband Jim and I used to listen to a storyteller comedian many years ago. We’d be on a long drive somewhere and we’d pop in a CD of Rick Reynold’s one man show called Only the Truth is Funny. There is a line in his monologue where he talks about staying up late to finish a term paper in college that he is not prepared to write and he makes the inspired decision to get an incomplete. “It feels so good to give up,” he says. It’s a funny line when he delivers it and one that I’ve never forgotten. I actually think it’s some of the best advice ever.

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I’m off the couch and sitting at the kitchen island now by the unadorned slider door, typing away on my computer. The new curtain rod hasn’t arrived yet, it’s one of the many unfinished items still on the list.

An hour or more has passed and Janyce is finished with her morning workout. She walks past me with her headphones off her ears and draped around her neck.

“You interested in some yogurt, berries and granola? I’ll run out now,” she says.

I take a moment to watch the light outside, watch it change from full sun to rain and back again as the ocean clouds high above Chatham on Cape Cod move mercurially in the sky. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the broken down bird house I found discarded in a pile of leaves and tossed aside by a storm years ago, now missing a floor. It has a charming rusted tin roof, and weathered gray sides covered with the same light green moss that curls around the tree branches. I dusted it off the other day and hung it on a hook out back in the scrub pines. Now I follow its motion, watching it rock back and forth, buffeted by the wind.

Get a small piece of board and nail to the bottom of the bird house. I scribble this on the pad of paper next me on the counter. One more thing on my list.