The 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the month are the Prompt Group meetings for the Evanston Writers Workshop.  It’s funny, but I find that on prompt days, I don’t usually do my morning pages in the morning.  Today is no exception; I wrote this morning instead of doing the pages (by that, I mean I worked on a WIP and not my journal).  I think that says less about the pages or Prompt Group than it does about me and my feelings around having lots or too much to do, but there you go.

What do you do on your lunch break?  Do you take a break at lunch?  I learned many years ago that for my own sanity, I have to have a break in the middle of the day.  Today I took care of some housekeeping tasks and then went outside to knit for a half hour.  Having to deal with the odd man babbling loudly on the sidewalk, while annoying, kept me in the moment.  What was he doing?  Why was he babbling?  Did he know I sat on the park bench above him?  Did he know the stairs led around a switchback and he’d be practically in my lap?  Was I safe?  Was I being judgmental?

I find those kinds of monkey-mind questions happen more on days when I skip my morning pages than on days I do them.  That’s not to say I float through my morning page days all serene, like a yogi; I’m just more aware of them when I don’t put them on the page.  It’s as though my thoughts, expecting to have been put down on paper, are waiting for the attention I normally give to them.  Meanwhile, I knit.  I got a row done on a shawl I’m designing. 

There’s some kind of universal lesson there, I think.