Prepare Ye

Prepare Ye

Recently—perhaps as some sort of unconscious Advent act—I’ve taken up commuting. Each day, it takes me 30 minutes to an hour to reach the door of my office or workshop. Which is surprising, given that the door to my home office is 33 inches from the door to my bedroom, and the workshop is down in the basement.

But I’ve adopted a circuitous route. Every morning, I set out from my front door and wander through the neighborhood, going in whatever direction I feel nudged. Girlfriend and I live in a bit of flat land between the Potomac River and the hills that mark much of Northern Virginia. Some mornings, I head for the shore, from where I can see into DC—the Capitol Dome, the Washington Monument, on clear days the National Cathedral and Basilica of the Immaculate Conception show on the horizon. Other mornings, I head up the hills that mark the “better neighborhood” behind us. It’s a climb into the sky I want those days—the sense of the clear air all round me.

I walk until I feel I’m done, and then I enter my house and my day’s workplace. I try not to spend my ramble planning, but I find myself feeling more prepared, more settled, more sure of what kind of work I can accomplish on that day. In The Soulwork of Clay, Marjory Bankson writes of the act of centering clay on the wheel as a kind of dialogue, an exploration of the potentialities in that particular chunk of clay—it’s unique weight and elasticity, the potter’s daily portion of strength or inspiration. My walks feel something like this—scenting the wind, seeing what this particular day brings.

My days have improved since I’ve started commuting. And those days when I can work in an afternoon commute are better still. Sometimes its an evening dog walk, sometimes some moments with a journal. In either case, it is a time for letting go—for recognizing what I have accomplished in the day, and acknowledging all that I’ve left undone. In some ways, this is an act of self-forgiveness: as often for my too-ambitious plans as for my failure to fulfill them.

When I give myself this time to lay aside the day’s ambition, I find I welcome Girlfriend home more fully. She doesn’t burst in as some interruption or the hooded, scythe-armed symbol of my life-time passing by. She enters instead as something like a (bear with me here) second dawn—the beginning of another kind of time: of cooking and reflecting, sharing our experiences, dreams and disappointments. It’s way better than the grudging way I had ignored her past homecomings, refusing to adapt my patterns to the 9-5 schedule I rejected oh so long ago.

I’m struck these days by the distinction between planning and preparation—planning, I am thinking, is about arranging circumstances; preparation is a changing of ourselves. Before I started my commute, I’d have my days well-planned: lists developed in advance, deadlines, goals, ambitions. Launching into these each morning was like driving into traffic: I could scoot forward, inch by inch, along the course I had laid out. But I would do so while besieged by doubt, frustration, the sense I should have started out much earlier, or set out on a different route.

By contrast, if I give myself some time for preparation, something calmer settles on the day. My choices feel more like some kind of deep cooperation, between the world as it is spinning in a given hour and my own shifting capabilities. I feel more connected, more closely in communion to world and to the people I encounter in it.

December seems to me, these days, to be a time of wrestling between planning and preparation. There is Advent, and the New Year beckons or it looms. There are the lists, the recipes, the parties and the final tax events. I found myself, as this month started, wishing all the holy stuff could happen, say, in February—some time when I felt I might have more time to turn and face it. A miracle, a new creation, some fulfillment of some hope—is there any way I could postpone it all, until I finished shopping?

It makes a difference, I have found, if I head toward the stove to make our dinner because it is the next thing on my list. Or if I turn into the kitchen to prepare to share an evening with someone I love and feel lucky for. To come together, welcoming and grateful, and discover what the evening brings.

Something new is always breaking through, the Christmas story promises. Something unexpected, unimagined, unknown until the moment it is recognized. All my siblings will be gathered here this Christmas—there are ten thousand details I could plan. Instead, I think I’ll try to get myself prepared.