Just breathe

“The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.” Sydney J. Harris, Chicago journalist

It’s that time of year again. The time when, if I don’t concentrate, my breaths tend to come in short gasps. “Breathe, Nora,” I have told myself several times just this morning.

The cause of all this air monitoring? It’s the last couple of weeks of the school year, which any parent of school-age kids knows is the new Christmas. Every club, team, whatever has some sort of “spectacular.”

Some people have smart phones to track such goings on. My phone possesses only a charming personality, to our daughters’ horror. So, I have a heavy metal clip on the side of the refrigerator instead. It’s full of paper directives as to who needs to be where, when and wearing what. In chronological order.

When we complete each event or task, I am tempted to slap the paper on a pointy stick and ding a bell with a spatula like cooks did in old-fashioned diners whenever an order was filled. (And, I have the bell to do it, too. A bright orange one I use to call in the troops at dinner time. I highly recommend it — much more civil than yelling or, worse, sending a mass text.)

But, I digress. My point is that the world’s desire to “bigger” just about everything, is not really worthy of anxiety on my part, or yours.

So, if you’re in the same busy little boat today, this week, this fortnight — breathe, just breathe. Some stuff will get done. Other stuff will just not. We’ll probably get to every place we’re supposed to be. But, if not, God’s world will continue to spin.