Just Pick One Job

This is a confusing telephone shot of
what it is really like to attend a zoom class
at the university.  Only the middle white part
is relevant to the class.  The rest of the shot is insterts.
Subject material? Clear.  Online delivery?  Difficult.

I am listening in on Rebecca's Business Associations Law class which meets Tuesday and Thursday afternoon.

If I wake before 4:30 am on one of those days, I need a quick nap before her 3:30 pm class begins. Bonnie Wyora asked me if I had any suggestions as to what she should do for those 3 hours ( not needing a nap herself).

I thought of 10 things I wanted her to do, and then said, “Of all of the things you want to do, just pick one, and when you are finished with it, spend the rest of the afternoon doing something pleasurable. 

The tree Bonnie cut is the one on the 
lower right hand side of the picture.

Do nothing for me.”

I couldn’t have done that second task I asked her to do: find something pleasurable and do it. 

Hard for me – that task of finding something pleasurable and immersing myself in it, at least when the work ethic is so deep in me, that pleasure is seen as wasting time, maybe close to sinning. Just moving to pleasure can fill me with the feeling of ongoing anxiety – shame that I am choosing that instead of the task of getting everything off of my job list.

So it wasn’t a kindness to put Bonnie to the same task – to find something pleasurable to do -- after checking off at one chore, of course, which she insisted she would do.

I only had time to brush my teeth and then I decided to bring my phone up from downstairs.

That is when I came upon her with our Christmas tree, already cut and dragged into the middle of the front room.

I burst out with laughter.

My first real tree, after deciding never to buy another real one back in 1970.


I don’t know if it was an environmental impulse then, or an impulse to be thrifty and reuse a fake tree over and over, or an action from a hope to never have to clean up pine needles all over the floor.

I don’t know why I really did something or anything 55 years ago. 

I am sure that now I don’t have to be stuck in a loop that is 55 years old.

“How did you do that in three minutes?” I asked.

“You had pointed out that you wanted that tree cut down. I walked home with Dave Wood this morning and he gave me his saw. we had measured the height of the place and where you wanted the tree. I had figured out that I had to lean into the tree as I cut it, so that it wouldn’t get jammed in the tree unable to move if I sent at it from a horizontal position. What more was there to do that to cut through 4 inches of its bole and drag it into the house.”

Bringing in the Christmas tree – a five minutes job.

Arta