As I sit on my back patio writing this post, my precious little Frenchie niece is playing around in my backyard. I have no plans this weekend. She is my plans. I’m not at the NFL draft, I didn’t run the Nashville Half Marathon, and I’m not downtown Nashville. (Everyone else I’m following on Instagram is though.)
I’ve actually had several weekends recently that I haven’t had my evenings booked with dinner plans, my days full of activities, or my lunchtime dates mapped out. Much of that is because I had major assignments due for school, so I had to allot time to completing them—and completing them well. So, home is where I’ve been.
If you know me, you know I like to stay on the go. I love having jobs to do, research to study, tasks to tackle, and assignments to finish. It’s just part of my personality. But now more than ever, I’ve come to appreciate—and recognize—the importance of and value in resting. I often still push myself too much, and I still over commit, but I think I’m better at recognizing when I need rest now and at enjoying it when I make time for it
A few weekends ago, I read Brad Gooch’s Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor. Never having studied O’Connor in great depth, I was excited to read her biography and find our more about this prolific Southern writer. There is much to be impressed about concerning O’Connor: her profound writing talents, her intellectual gifts, her devotion to her faith, and her adherence to her work. Gooch makes it clear that O’Connor had a strong sense of self; she was not averse to being alone, nor did she fear forging her own path. She was a strong Christian in a quite liberal literary world, yet because of her writing abilities and ceaseless dedication to her work, she was revered in that same world. O’Connor held fast to her beliefs and said that she survived “by not being afraid to be different from the rest of them” (152).
One of these differences was that she didn’t fear missing out. When everyone left to party in the city, she stayed home to write. When everyone left to do much of anything, she often stayed home to write. And even after she had to return to Georgia due to health complications (after having studied at the University of Iowa and the Yaddo artists’ colony in Saratoga Springs, New York), she spent much of her time at home by choice.
For some reason, this was so encouraging to me. She didn’t feel the need to be at every get-together, to visit far away places, or to travel often. (She traveled abroad once, and she took occasional trips to Tennessee to visit friends.) While her health somewhat impeded her ability to travel, she likely wouldn’t have wanted to travel anymore than she did anyway. Did she get together with friends? Yes! She had visitors over quite frequently. Did she enjoy traveling? Well, of course! But she didn’t need to go every month.
I took a lot of O’Connor’s life to heart: staying faithful in your beliefs is first and foremost important, traveling is fun (but exhausting) and best had in doses, and home is where the heart is. O’Connor lived the greater portion of her life in the South and acknowledged this to be “perhaps the greatest blessing a writer can have, to find at home what others have to go elsewhere seeking” (Mystery and Manners 54).
My weekend of reading Flannery O’Connor’s biography was one that was calm and quiet, just like I expect this weekend will be. In our society today, it’s so easy to feel you need to do more, to be more, and to have more. But don’t fall for that message; be better than that message, no matter your season of life. Whether you’re single or married or a parent of seven, know that you don’t need an excuse to stay home.
Do as much as you want, but put a cap on your plans when it gets to be too much. Cherish your downtime. Don’t make light of it, and capitalize on its gift.