Life in the Margins

I've been thinking lately about the way I deal with time. I'm well aware that I'm not a truly busy person. I don't have children or a husband or (at the moment) a full-time job. I have all the time in the world, but I stress about time. Maybe my anxiety stems from a semi-subconscious awareness that I waste a lot of it. I especially stress out about delays, about changed plans, about the unexpected. I think I learned in college to micro-manage every minute of my time and just never really stopped, or at least never lost the feeling that I ought to be doing it. A couple of weeks ago, a chance acquaintance was talking about creating margins in life. Showing up early, leaving late, scheduling extra time around planned events, just to see what shows up during those times. The idea resonated with me immediately as a solution to some of that anxiety and as one way to make sure I was fully engaged in the life I have right now.

It reminded me of some writing advice I found in Fiction Writer's Brainstormer by James V. Smith, Jr. He says, "Most of the time we are so lacking in self-awareness that we are not aware of moving around in a fog. We let the noise of daily life overwhelm us. We sink into trivial things like gossip and news items that have spawned countless talk shows without adding much enlightenment to our lives. Or we drift along in the raging torrent of racket created by our popular culture" (35). He goes on to challenge his readers to wake up. Listen. Absorb. Take notes. Explore possibilities. Engage in the world around you rather than just passively taking it in. I have a post-it note bookmarking that page, and along the top I wrote in capital letters. "WAKE UP." I honestly don't blame television or popular culture. It's up to me to decide whether I'm going to just  take what's handed to me or wrestle with it and dissect it and find what's valuable in it. It's up to me to cultivate the life of the mind so that it can actually produce something worthwhile. 

Back to margins. A few days after encountering the idea of creating margins, I ran into a living example. Sometimes I'll pop into the 24 hour Walmart on my way home from house church on Monday nights, usually around elevenish. Night owl that I am, wide awake and several hours away from bedtime, I do more relaxed browsing than businesslike shopping. I wasn't thinking about this at the time, but my occasional Monday night shopping is a naturally occurring margin in my life. That night I found my way back to the Sporting Goods section, since I was planning a weekend camping trip. There was an employee shelving some things, a guy who looked to be around my age. I asked him a question about something and ended up having a chat with him about my upcoming camping trip. He was pleasant, kind, and decidedly Southern. Moments after he moved on to another aisle to continue his work, a folding table he'd just set up fell over with a resounding crash. He came running back around the corner and said with evident relief, "Good Lord, I thought something had done fallen on you!" I cannot describe how adorable it was. After I'd finished my shopping, I went out to the car and put my grocery bags in the trunk. Somewhere between the trunk and the driver's side door, something terrible happened to my car key. I don't know how it happened, but the key was badly bent. I did my best to bend it back and managed to get the door open. No matter how I tried, though, it wouldn't start the car. I was starting to feel a little panicky. I wasn't sure who to call, since all of my friends are gainfully employed and try to go to bed at a decent hour. And then it dawned on me. I had a new friend in Sporting Goods who loved hunting and fishing and rock climbing and other such outdoor endeavors. Surely he would have some idea of what to do. Sure enough, he declared with great confidence, "This is Walmart, they got everything!" He took a hammer and knocked that thing straight within seconds, then decided that it still had a little twist to it and took care of that problem with a pair of pliers. My key was right as rain, and it started the car with no problems. As I turned it in the ignition, I chuckled to myself and thought about how well that "margin-making" had turned out for me. This is not to say that making margins and connecting with people will always have direct and visible benefits. I don't think that's the point. But I do know that if I hadn't stopped to chat with him, it probably wouldn't have occurred to me to go back in the store for help.

I don't want to turn this into a New Years Resolution type thing, and I think it's a little cheesy to "challenge my readers." Maybe I just want to encourage you to try a little of what I'm trying; create space in your life for the unexpected and see where it takes you. Step back from the routines of your daily life and try to see things you didn't see before. Perhaps even try doing that literally: lie down on the floor of your living room and look at everything from that perspective. Look at the city or town you live in and try to see patterns and shapes and lines you've never noticed. Try to notice something new about someone you see every day. Really make it a point to take on the ideas that come your way and figure out what you think about them. Make connections between concepts, and ask people around you what they think. Don't just absorb; create. I don't know what you'll find, or what I will. I have a notion that's the point.