Much Ado About Nothing

There seems to be a time built into summer that calls for doing nothing. 

Perhaps it’s the heat; perhaps it’s a required pause in our over indulgence in working hard to get ahead, or perhaps it’s a way to reset mentally, physically and emotionally.  Not unlike my computer that works so beautifully for me...day and night working-working-working until things start going all awry and I discover the solution is to reboot. To just “power down” and allow it do nothing for a minute, restart it and voila! Refreshed, reinvigorated, ready to go again with things back in order.

My mother, a violinist, used to always say that in the musical score there are a variety of directives weaving through a melody that make it beautiful and the Rest sign is as important to the success of the composition as any other. A musical score devoid of “Rests” is frenetic and unpleasing. And so it should be with our life, she would say.

I think of my grandfather, a wheat farmer.  How very hard he would work to prepare and plant his fields, weed and water and then there came the time in summer when he must do nothing.  A respite before the green shafts of wheat turn to gold and harvesting begins. A built in time for the fields AND the farmer to rest.

So what do we do? We head for the beach or for the lake-shore or for a mountain stream or for the pool or maybe even just climb into the tub. Perhaps these are ways to cool off from the heat of the relentless rays of the sun but really isn’t it a joy to have it be OK to do nothing? Allowing ourselves to be drawn to a place of relaxation, rest and tranquility where we metaphorically reboot our systems by giving us the chance to feel the beauty (and power) of the “Rest” in our life’s song?

The majority of the people I talk to can sum up their daily lives in the one statement, the one I hear over and over again, “I’m so Busy!” 

I’m not as busy as I used to be when I had children and a job and a big home to manage but my mind still runs at a busy pace.  It was Shakespeare who wisely said, “The earth has music for those who listen.”  And it would seem that to be able to listen, we need to rest.

Perhaps I’m making much ado about nothing or perhaps nothing is one of the most important things we can do.