"How do you get it all done?" my sister, a full-time teacher and the first-time mother of a one-year-old, asked me recently.
"I don't," I, the stay-at-home mom of a two-year old, answered.
"Really?" she asked, sounding relieved. I offered to send her pictures of my absurd piles of laundry. I DID send her a picture of my outrageously-long to-do list.
This morning, my husband asked me what the significance of three stars in front of an item on my to-do list was... seeing as about 3/4 of the list were three star items.
I'm busy. My sister is busy. I don't have time to do things I want to do. I don't have time to do things I need to do. My sister is the same way. Most moms I know are the same way. My husband feels the same way about both his work days, where he spends so much time on zoom meetings that he can't get any actual work done, and also about his weekend projects he's had on his to-do list for years. (Such as installing the doggy door we bought before Baldur died.)
Everyone's busy. Our neighbor is constantly ferrying her teenagers to various sportsball games. My diet program addresses the issue of planning ahead and taking healthy snacks and meals with you so that you don't have to stop and get takeout, in a tone that implies that most people are doing so most days of the week.
Everyone's busy.
I recall a Loony Toons cartoon from 1954 wherein a housewife spent all day running errands, arriving home just before her husband. He asks her if she picked up something for him, and she apologizes that she forgot. He is annoyed, asking what she did all day. We're treated to a rerun of her day, going to the bank and various other outings, in each of which she is delayed or something goes wrong. She cleans the house with a vacuum - "there were ATTACHMENTS to do the work," she narrates, as her past self dumps dozens of tubes on the floor. The vacuum breaks down and she ends up sweeping.
Everyone's busy. Now we have Roombas and better cars and higher speed limits (and I believe the cartoon housewife may actually have been doing errands on foot). We have dishwashers and washing machines, cell phones and voice-activated TV's. We should have more time, right?
It feels like we've always been busy. That 1950's housewife had a vacuum and a dry cleaner and an oven and various electric kitchen appliances. She should have had more time, right?
When I was a kid, I was a big fan of the Little House on the Prairie books. The Ingalls and Wilder families got up before dawn to milk the cows and do other farm chores. The children walked miles to school. Ma was constantly cooking, cleaning, sewing... Pa was often plowing. Laura's first job was a in a tailor's shop. She basted men's shirts. She sewed from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM. She had a break for lunch (which she ate with the tailor and his family). She did this all week - I want to say Saturday, too. She was fourteen.
But those plucky homesteaders had farm tools and kitchen implements. They had needles, thread, scissors, and woven fabric. They had domestic animals and crops. You would think they would have had more time...
I'm currently reading Guns, Germs, and Steel, a book about how societies evolved, but more-so, how societies evolved differently - which societies had easily domesticable animals and plants, and which were hunter gatherers. The author states that you would think the farmers would have it easier, had more food, and more time... but that actually early farmers needed even more time and effort to produce the food they needed than did hunter-gatherers.
We're all busy. We've always been busy. How we define busy changes. The things I've learned from the above books will be helpful to me when writing period pieces... if I can even find the time in my busy life.
How has "busy" changed for you over the course of your life? If you're a fellow writer, how does a character you're currently working on define "busy?"
(By the way, I wrote this while Elianna was taking a rare second nap...)