Here's the thing: I basically only do one business activity a day. Anything more is all together too exhausting. This category excludes housekeeping but includes everything from mailing a letter to doing my taxes to buying toothpaste or a new car. I am so lucky to have such a simple life, anything else and, who know what would happen?
For years I worked a bunch of jobs at the same time. For a few years I was a Waldorf School class teacher, did free-lance editing in the early morning hours, had the refugee foster kids, and did banquet serving on weekends. I was a single mother at a very low paying job with no health insurance. Moan and groan. And, there was the care and feeding of the kids, the house, the car and so on. I mostly enjoyed every minute of it.
Finances were so stressed that I had a box under the mail slot and couldn't bring myself to open the mail more than once every two months. Sometimes the mail carrier would slide a particularly pressing bill under the door. The thing is, we did it! Eventually, the bills all got paid, the kids got launched, and I was kind of cooked. Without the pressure of the kids, I lost interest. I was in a rental house after the kids left home and I had been there six months before I noticed that it didn't have an oven. Point made.
Right now I am living la dolce vita. However, today I had two business tasks. I had to buy a bus ticket, reserve the seat, call a tuktuk to take a trip. I have to leave the country on a visa run. It is very frowned upon to overstay your visa here. The nice woman at the hotel desk set me up with that business. Then, I had to mail a painting that I bought back to the states. Oh ya, AND go to the ATM. The pressure. I made my strategy for the day. I could stop for my second coffee on the way to the mail place, then go to a temple and meditate and give thanks, do the mail place, return to hotel to get rid of ATM money, eat lunch, take a walk, have a massage, read my book, eat dinner, take another walk, get a new book, and go home and crash.
I was feeling that although there is a lot to do today and a lot of pressure, I could cope. When I was at the mail place (It certainly didn't look like a post office.) The woman behind the desk was trying her best to ignore me. This is unusual in Thailand where everyone greets everyone. I think she was unsure about her English and hoping I would go elsewhere. I couldn't. I had a schedule to keep. I asked her what it would cost to send the package. She asked me whether I wanted to send it by the regular plane or the slow plane. "You're shitting me right? The slow plane, what's that?" She said "It is a slower plane." "How much slower?" I asked. "About three weeks slower." I gazed into her eyes to be sure she wasn't making fun of me. She wasn't. Thai people are very straight about business things.
"Oh my God, I'll choose the slow plane." I declared. She looked very satisfied as though I had passed a test. But I can't help think, how slow can a plane go and still stay air born? Is going slow even possible? I have slowed down my life to a very slow pace, but I have done it gradually. Can a plane do that? Is this a metaphor? Another one of those mysterious Asian things? I don't know.
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