Slip Away

Multi-tasking is getting a bad name.  In "The Busy Trap" NYT columnist Tim Kreider asks if being busy has become an addiction:  By over-booking our calendars, are we avoiding self-reflection?  His warning about failing to nurture relationships is echoed in Phil Vassar's current tune "Don't Miss Your Life."  The song's dilemma of a traveling father is not new, but it seems more relevant than ever.

As a woman can now become a CEO while she is pregnant, multi-tasking has reached Olympian heights.  Women are less likely to put their families on the back burner than men are, but at their own peril.   While we are busy running the universe and scheduling the household, we leave ourselves behind.

In Women Who Run With the Wolves Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes urges us to slip our collars and reclaim our inner knowingness.  An inability to pace ourselves becomes life-sapping:  How can we keep our soulfulness?  One way is to find a pack of creative comrades.

One pack I belong to is a loosely-knit cluster of working women.  A handful of us have pondered Dr. Estes' messages in virtual discussions, interspersed with nourishing face-time.  In a secure location we've crafted primitive art that pulls our dreams through the din of domestication and the demands of professional life.  Invariably, one of us has to cancel; the rest of us nod, and keep going.

Find a pack -- find three hours.  Feed your soul.