My grandmother Marilyn (and only grandparent for the vast majority of my life) passed away last night. Her life’s motto, based on her husband’s last words to her before he died 42 years ago, was “Keep things moving as they should.”
She told all of this often, and embodied it in her daily life. Until her last two weeks, she was taking care of a house and acre of land almost entirely independently (and frustrating her kids by constantly climbing up ladders when she absolutely should not have been - there are pros and cons!).
I was lucky to spend a considerably amount of time with her in the last couple of years, having spent about 6 weeks of my parental leave staying with her and then another 2-3 weeks every since since then. The first year we were there, we told her we would change the sheets and "turnover" the guest room where my parents had been staying, but about three hours after we took them to the airport we went to go do it and saw it was already done.
"We were going to do that!" my husband said, and my grandmother replied, "...but you didn't." We never dilly dallied on a task at her house again!
But, it wasn't about productivity. My grandmother thought productivity culture was complete silliness. It's not really about doing one thing fast so you have more time for something else. It's about doing things that are worthwhile and doing them well.
She was just as likely to spend an hour on a puzzle as she was to spend an hour on housework. When someone was ill she brought them food. When a room needed painting, she painted it. When the oranges were ripe on the tree, she picked them, made orange juice, and brought bottles to every local family member. When a book was compelling, she read it to the end, and if it wasn't, she stopped.
I can't tell you how much the timing of this post feels like a sign to me. My grandmother was always trying to understand my life in the city, in a tiny apartment with a husband, a baby, and a dog, and would ask me about it constantly. This post feels like a thread showing how my roots directed me to the life I strive to live now. Efficient, simple, focused on what matters, keeping things going as they should. Life is so much more expansive that way.
Thanks for your beautiful and thoughtful comment, Becca. I am sorry for your loss. It's so hard to say goodbye to grandparents who have made an impression on our lives. My grandmother died 4 years ago and I still think of her all the time. I love how you position her viewpoint as being opposed to productivity culture, and I think that's exactly what I was trying to get at in my post. It's not about the volume of work, but its quality. And I don't think it matters where you live, or even what you do, as long as you consistently apply that approach.
This is a fascinating post for me, having been “retired” from my full-time job and having to fill my days. For some time I wasted endless hours scrolling through twitter (i have quit that) and LinkedIn and RSS feeds, most of which was no longer relevant to my life because I no longer had to feed the Treehugger machine. I had to say STOP! and took up sitting down and reading books, something I was never able to do because of my attention span issues. I actually finished four books in January, which I haven’t done in decades. And as you get older, spending time with purpose becomes more important every day.
My son and I read a story from Frog and Toad last night called "Tomorrow". Toad realizes that if he just does all the stuff he is putting off until tomorrow right now, he can worry less today and have fun tomorrow. It was so timely after reading this piece about an hour before. Thank you!
My grandmother Marilyn (and only grandparent for the vast majority of my life) passed away last night. Her life’s motto, based on her husband’s last words to her before he died 42 years ago, was “Keep things moving as they should.”
She told all of this often, and embodied it in her daily life. Until her last two weeks, she was taking care of a house and acre of land almost entirely independently (and frustrating her kids by constantly climbing up ladders when she absolutely should not have been - there are pros and cons!).
I was lucky to spend a considerably amount of time with her in the last couple of years, having spent about 6 weeks of my parental leave staying with her and then another 2-3 weeks every since since then. The first year we were there, we told her we would change the sheets and "turnover" the guest room where my parents had been staying, but about three hours after we took them to the airport we went to go do it and saw it was already done.
"We were going to do that!" my husband said, and my grandmother replied, "...but you didn't." We never dilly dallied on a task at her house again!
But, it wasn't about productivity. My grandmother thought productivity culture was complete silliness. It's not really about doing one thing fast so you have more time for something else. It's about doing things that are worthwhile and doing them well.
She was just as likely to spend an hour on a puzzle as she was to spend an hour on housework. When someone was ill she brought them food. When a room needed painting, she painted it. When the oranges were ripe on the tree, she picked them, made orange juice, and brought bottles to every local family member. When a book was compelling, she read it to the end, and if it wasn't, she stopped.
I can't tell you how much the timing of this post feels like a sign to me. My grandmother was always trying to understand my life in the city, in a tiny apartment with a husband, a baby, and a dog, and would ask me about it constantly. This post feels like a thread showing how my roots directed me to the life I strive to live now. Efficient, simple, focused on what matters, keeping things going as they should. Life is so much more expansive that way.
Thanks for your beautiful and thoughtful comment, Becca. I am sorry for your loss. It's so hard to say goodbye to grandparents who have made an impression on our lives. My grandmother died 4 years ago and I still think of her all the time. I love how you position her viewpoint as being opposed to productivity culture, and I think that's exactly what I was trying to get at in my post. It's not about the volume of work, but its quality. And I don't think it matters where you live, or even what you do, as long as you consistently apply that approach.
This is a fascinating post for me, having been “retired” from my full-time job and having to fill my days. For some time I wasted endless hours scrolling through twitter (i have quit that) and LinkedIn and RSS feeds, most of which was no longer relevant to my life because I no longer had to feed the Treehugger machine. I had to say STOP! and took up sitting down and reading books, something I was never able to do because of my attention span issues. I actually finished four books in January, which I haven’t done in decades. And as you get older, spending time with purpose becomes more important every day.
Love this!
Love this. Viewing necessary tasks as finite blocks of time is so freeing.
My son and I read a story from Frog and Toad last night called "Tomorrow". Toad realizes that if he just does all the stuff he is putting off until tomorrow right now, he can worry less today and have fun tomorrow. It was so timely after reading this piece about an hour before. Thank you!
That sounds delightful! Maybe that's a story for my kids, too—a great way of visualizing the lesson I'm trying to impart.
It was in the book Days with Frog and Toad!