Your Top 5 Leisure Activities

My educator friend remarks on the importance of teaching leisure skills to students.

Learning the skill of leisure fascinates me. Some children understand how to excel in leisure; they use free time for pure enjoyment in ways that don't harm themselves or others. Other children need help learning how.

My friend comments that the default leisure activity for many children--of all abilities--is television and video games, so part of her curriculum involves helping students discover leisure skills that keep them moving and engaged.

Our conversation raises so many questions for me. Do I have leisure skills? Do my children? Would they know how to enjoy themselves apart from a screen?

I'm inspired again to walk in the woods, bake cakes, paint, read novels, take bubble baths, complete puzzles, build forts, take photographs, and try out new things I might enjoy. A therapist once told me I should--at any given moment--be able to list 5 leisure activities I enjoy.

Some folks can't.

There's a skill to leisure, and I want to do it well.

Here are my top five:
1.  Reading with a cup a coffee in my rocking chair
2.  Photographing very small things
3.  Taking a bubble bath
4.  Walking around the neighborhood
5.  Baking something

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Do you have 5 ways you love to enjoy yourself? 

They Know Not to Mess With You

I must go pick raspberries. The patch appears more bee than berry, and I'm deathly allergic. I have my epi-pen ready.

I wade into the patch and the bees swarm about me. I don't even pay attention to them. This is my territory, folks. Don't mess with me.

I'm amazed at my own courage. 

I pick with confidence. I pick with authority. "Excuse me, little bees, but I have a harvest to gather here." 

I pick a bowlful and notice how the bees actually avoid me. They actually seem to fear me.

I think of my own spiritual life. When I wade into my day with confidence and authority--because God is with me--I feel the difference. I don't let spiritual assaults hinder me.

Don't mess with me. I have a harvest of God's fruit to gather. 

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I'm beginning to think that bees know when you mean business!

"I'm Laying a Dragon Egg."

The first words out of a little boy's mouth this morning on the walk to school are, "Remember not to touch my back; I'm laying a dragon egg."

"Oh, yes of course!" I say. "And where will you be laying the dragon egg?"

"In a very soft patch of sunflowers." Then he's off running down the sidewalk to lay the imaginary dragon egg in the imaginary patch of sunflowers.

10 minutes later, another little boy joins us on the walk. I tell him he should meet the other little boy.

"No thanks," he says politely. "I already know too many people."

I burst out laughing at the honesty and the keen understanding of his own capacity. He sets a boundary--not an unkind one--and walks on to school.

The other boy doesn't mind at all. He's too busy laying a dragon egg and reminding others not to bother him.

Oh, that I could rediscover the imagination of children and retain the natural boundary system that keeps them aware of their needs and limits! They act sincerely and creatively.

Both boys taught me something this morning.

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Isn't it amazing that children know their boundaries and adults are so terrible and saying "no" and setting limits?