Aeolus: Keeper of the Holidays

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‘The holidays’ is one of life’s greatest excuses. From November through January, we are required to do nothing but eat cookies and wait on line at the mall. Not only that, but it is permissible for stress levels at this time to be equivalent to or in excess of regular daily activities. All this for the sake of a little good cheer.
As Aeolus the keeper of winds blew Odysseus and his crew off track, the holidays can make a person feel they’ve forgotten exactly who they are, what they are supposed to be doing in life, and why people keep exchanging fruit cake even though nobody really likes it. So as you are playing a marathon game of charades with your little nieces and nephews, you’re wishing you were writing the intro paragraph to your next chapter. And as you press ‘send’ on an email to your advisor detailing your ‘progress’ over the past two weeks, you are wondering if you’ll ever hear from him again. So too as you watch ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ for the 43rd time, you begin to wonder when the deadline was for that conference you wanted to submit to next fall. These are all results of the holidays’ own Aeolus that parses out treats, guilt and detours so quick and so seductively that rational thought becomes something you remember doing last spring.
Once I remember making the point at an elementary school faculty meeting, “Well, we shouldn’t even plan to get through any chapters this month (December), because everybody knows no real work gets done until after the first of the year.” I was met with pleading looks that said, ‘take me with you,’ but it was all quickly followed by regular lesson planning. No one could acknowledge the truth. So what did get done that December? Someone brought in very delicious cupcakes, I couldn’t put a piece of paper down on a surface without being covered in glitter, the average classroom decibel level rose by 40%, but lessons? learning? Memory retention? NOTHING.
My point is to consider any work you’ve managed to squeeze in between turkey eating and champagne drinking as creative icing on the proverbial gingerbread man, and let’s move onto January. January when we meet the Laestrygonians.

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Filed under dissertation, holidays, procrastination