Forty days and forty nights, tempted and yet (arguably) undefiled.

Maundy Thursday adventures with bread goods

Easter Sunday was three days ago, so I’m slightly overdue with an update on my Lenten resolution to give up indolence and indulgence of the metaphysical variety, a.k.a. wallowing in self-pity.

It's spring now and that certainly helps. More on the weather in another post and I still stand by my preference for colder climes, but things feel more possible in the spring, especially after more than three months of pretty much subzero temperatures. 

So, in the spirit of getting things done, here are five points from “Erin’s Getting Things Done List” devised and enacted over the last six weeks for the hope of development and redefinition in the months to come.

1) Join a choir.

I am now a part-time member of the professional St James Cathedral Choir in downtown Toronto. Got off my proverbial, auditioned, got in, and have already sung a couple of services.

It’s very hard to explain to non-singers, even singers who don’t really get cathedral singing, but it really is succour for my soul. I’m no longer apologetic about it: I love the music first, the ritual and tradition second, then the specific and often quite scandalous social camaraderie of a cathedral choir, and placed within the urban and theologically liberal context of an inner city cathedral, I admire the social application of intelligent and inclusive Christianity. Even with my very developed and complicated unbelief.

Related to all this, we’re getting a piano in June. SCORE!

2) Bake bread (with an eye on more adventurous pastry)

You may have heard tell of my dislike of cooking dinner. It’s true, dinner can be someone else’s responsibility. But I do enjoy baking, and more specifically, I do enjoy eating bread. Logic would therefore suggest I should bake bread, which I was first taught to do at the kitchen bench of a very dear family friend who looked after me a lot when I was four - the smell of yeast still transports me back to Bristol accents, Portmeirion china, and that wonderful feeling of befriending a grown-up who talks to you like a rational human being, not a small child. 

Anyway, I can bake and Betty Friedan may not have approved, but I shall attempt to make bread more regularly, so long as it’s never a chore and an obligation. I mention Friedan because I do think it absurd that a highly educated woman like myself should be forced by circumstance into predominantly stay-at-home motherhood, and I do agree that slaving over bread-making is ridiculous when you can outsource such an activity. Indeed, Friedan’s 1960s despair over the options facing mothers is very resonant with my own woes this last year, but I like baking and baking bread is a delightful indulgence, so long as it's a choice. It also allows me to punch dough. Additionally, I outsource cooking dinner to my husband. Betty would approve. (If you don’t understand what I’m on about, then read The Feminine Mystique for goodness sake.)   

3)  Get out of the house and do something.

I’ve been volunteering at school since the Autumn, braving the elements come rain, snow and -40 windchill every Monday morning to help with the school drop-off. I’ve also assisted occasionally with my daughter’s class reading programme. Getting outside, no matter the weather has been great; and reading with five and six-year-olds has been fun. 

However, these are not especially fulfilling in the longterm, so I’m getting involved at the Oakville Museum (19th-century colonial stuff, pretty lakeside setting, what’s not to like!). It’ll be on a volunteer basis to start with, but if you want to get into museum services (or literary events, or publishing, or pretty much every field I’m qualified for) you have to volunteer first. We’ll see what happens.

4) Embrace the 17 months I have until my son starts school while thinking creatively about my career prospects.

I thought I’d have a job by now, and even though there is still potential for some teaching in the 2014-2015 academic year and I’m not giving up looking for further opportunities, I’m trying not to worry about it so much. September 2015 will come around soon enough and the endless childcare concerns will reduce significantly. I might as well enjoy this time the best I can.

I’m still doing some research: I have an academic article coming out soon; I’m presenting a paper at a conference next month; I’m involved in some research groups; but I’m trying to remove that sense of pressing and frankly rather depressing obligation in a dismal academic job market. I’m not being single minded about the opportunities I have.  

More specifically, we’ve reduced daycare down to two days a week to save some money, and I’m learning HTML and CSS to be of practical use to the “family business”. I like patterns and it’s quite fun.  

I’m also going to do more weekday activities with the kids.

Ironically, my son is watching TV while I write this.

5) Go on more daytrips.

We’re moving house soon, so our access to shops, cafes, and the train station (i.e. easy access to downtown Toronto) will be vastly improved, which is great, but the shocking thing about a major international move has been all the unexpected costs. Holidays just seem out of the question right now, but we have a car and great provincial parks nearby. There is also an impressively regular train into Toronto with all that city has to offer. No excuses, we shall do things.

Unless we feel like being lazy, and then we shan’t.