Weekly Meander #19: Rubbish at resting
On trying to take a break when the whirl of life continues all around (plus a short film treat every overwhelmed mother will relate to)
Hi! Thanks for joining me on this weekly meander through my week just gone – with a focus on my evolving working life. If you’re new here, do check out this post for a bit more about me. TLDR: I'm a documentary filmmaker coming to the end of distributing my debut feature doc -about the history of nuclear power - and currently exploring/expanding into new professional avenues whilst also navigating parenting & perimenopause. Some balls may be dropped!
You'll also find recommendations of great reads I've seen on Substack in the past week. If you enjoy it, do feel free to leave a comment. And of course I'd love it if you would consider subscribing to get all my posts delivered straight to your inbox.
Is resting a skill? Once upon a time - let's say, 15 years ago - I certainly didn't think so. Or at least, if I did, I'd have said it was a skill I'd totally mastered.
I had clear delineations between when I was working and when I wasn't. I had one long stretch of completely discretionary leisure time every week from beer o'clock on a Friday1 to when I hopped on my bicycle to work again around 9am on a Monday morning.
I generally packed a lot into my weekends – a long brunch with my boyfriend, movies, pub, often some sort of campaigning (street stall, stunt or march), less often (!) a blitz of cleaning, hanging out with friends, plus a lot of, well, loafing about, listening to music and bedding in with a good book.
But there was rarely anything I had to do.
Any thoughts of work were generally completely absent from my brain until I was pulling on my helmet and high viz and hoiking my panniers into place as I pushed off into the south London traffic at the start of the new week.
I miss those days.
These days an uninterrupted stretch of time like that feels like a distant, almost unimaginable luxury. Part of this, I know, is that back then I didn't have kids. My time was completely my own in a way it simply isn’t now.
But I also feel like I’ve lost my grasp on that ability to stop constantly THINKING about what I’ve done or haven’t done and what I’m going to do next. And if it’s the ‘right’ or ‘best thing’.
Somewhere along the line I went from contemplating a delightful menu of ‘could dos’ to co-existing with a steady mental drumbeat of ‘must dos.’
Or to use a term from the late psychologist Albert Ellis that I came across this week, ‘musturbation’ (I mean, it’s a fun pun even if the concept - “irrational demandingness of yourself, others or life conditions” - isn’t much fun at all).
In short, I think I’ve got rubbish at resting!
A bit of context. After a crazy busy week last week, this week I decided I needed to give myself the gift of what in my head I was calling a ‘joyful pause’.
But it didn't exactly work out that way.
Yes, I did do some restful things. I read a wonderful Irish war novel that's been sitting on my bedside for months gently calling to me. I watched some episodes of Queenie as recommended by
(thanks Jenna!) and a couple of old movies I'd recorded off Talking Pictures TV2 for exactly such times as this.And one day after school, my cricket-mad 10 year old and I watched a documentary about the Afghan cricket team's extraordinary rise from obscurity all the way to the World Cup back in 2010 – a funny and uplifting ride that also feels like a time capsule to another era now (watch out for a full post on the film as part of my A to Z of favourite feature docs, coming soon).
But my plans for coffee and journalling on the beach were scuppered by bad weather. I was majorly distracted by the UK's General Election - I spent far longer than was good for me scrolling through X and listening to instant-reaction podcasts on Friday (this seems like a good moment to plug
and the politics Substack if you've not already checked it out).Plus of course, I couldn't just switch off from being a mum. Not that I'd want to. But sometimes if I'm honest, I'd love nothing more than to just hide away inside a hut made of Lego, waiting for all the noise and chaos to retreat. Just like the harried mother in this brilliant short film I came across this week in fact:
‘Blocks’ (Dir. Bridget Moloney, 2020)
https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2020/06/15/blocks/
If you're a parent who's ever felt overwhelmed, or if you're not, but want an insight into just how batshit parenting can feel sometimes, then find 11 minutes in your day to watch this. [Warning: contains vomiting. And Lego].
This week, as well as all the usual logistical stuff, we had a home visit from my daughter's new reception teachers and I had a meeting with the school nurse about some ongoing issues we're working on with my son at home and at school – it's really good to be being offered support but it's also mentally and emotionally draining having to go through the issues again and again with different points of contact as we try to navigate a confusing and underfunded system.
In the end, despite a strong desire to take this ‘joyful pause’ for myself, I just never felt like I had the time or mental spaciousness to fully give myself over to it. I couldn't switch off properly from work either and still ended up noodling around in my inbox, leaving me with a feeling of having failed either to be productive or to fully embrace being unproductive.
Oh well. It’s the school holidays in a few weeks time. I can relax then. Right?!
WORK WINS THIS WEEK
So yes, I did sneakily answer a few work emails but since I was supposed to be resting, I'm not going to put these in the win column.
I did do some planning for the next couple of months though and this was on the agenda as part of my 'joyful pause' (I should probably stop calling it that at this point 😄) so I'll let it through.
Mostly this was coming to terms with how little time I actually have to play with, what with various end of term bits and bobs, nursery inset days and summer holidays on the horizon - here’s the layout for July before I added any work into it (the white bits are work times, the dark grey days I can’t work at all and the light grey ones are school holiday days when my daughter will be at nursery and my son at home so, we’ll see how those go…)
Nonetheless it was useful to try and map out a bit of a path from here to September – which is when I hope to start firing on more cylinders, professionally at least, as we enter the next stage of family life.
My youngest will start school and our Grand Old Duke routine of marching to the top of the hill and back down again for twice daily school/nursery drop offs and picks up in completely opposite directions will finally be behind us. There'll be plenty of adjusting to do to find a new routine that works around the hard landscaping of the school day and my natural energy and concentration levels (not a fantastic match unfortunately) but I'm looking forward to seeing what this new season holds.
And it'll be a good chance to make more use of my rather lovely Substack Planner which I bought from
and treated myself by getting it professionally printed out – doesn't it look nice!
WHAT I'M LOVING ON SUBSTACK THIS WEEK
With resting and taking stock, especially around this midpoint in the year, very much on my mind this week, I’ve done a lot of reading on this theme. Here are some of the pieces I’ve most enjoyed.
And that’s where I’ll leave you for this week. I’m going to be thinking a lot more about the power of rest both in my own life and as part of my research for a new documentary film I’m developing so I’d love to hear your thoughts.
What do you do to rest? Do you find it harder (or easier) than you used to? Do you fall prey to ‘should’ and ‘musts’?
Oh and do let me know what you thought of Blocks!
with leisurely love,
Vicki
Proudly taking part in the Sparkle on Substack 24 essays club – this is post 14 😊
Watch my film on Netflix (in Europe) or Vimeo (everywhere else) - or see trailer, reviews & bonus content HERE
Life stories website – coming soon...
Years after I stopped regularly working in TV offices I still call it that – though I wonder whether it was a noughties boom thing and if today's young researchers and APs still enjoy the pleasure of someone coming around with a tray of free booze at 5pm every Friday...?!
For those outside the UK, this is a wonderful free-to-air, small, independent TV station showing rare and vintage films and TV shows, many but not all of them British – it's honestly a delight.
Rest is soooo important - but finding the time and space for it is as difficult as hunting unicorns!
Loved your post. I'm not a parent, but I can still very much relate to it!
Thanks so much for including my piece, Vicki. Really appreciate it. And I have to say, I love your planner!