While I Was Out

I forgot to write the Journal. Not one Journal. Several Journals.

This is slightly embarrassing because I am, among other things, the editor of the Journal. I created the publishing schedule, chose the categories, decided Friday was the day we would publish, and generally behaved as though I had all of this under control. The evidence now suggests otherwise.

We left for Italy on September 29, which is probably how one missed Friday managed to turn into three. The days before a tour have a way of filling themselves, and once the tour begins, there are travelers arriving, hotel rooms to sort out, restaurants expecting us, artisans waiting for us, luggage moving from one place to another, and sixteen people who quite reasonably expect us to know what is happening next.

Those things are difficult to neglect because they have a habit of standing directly in front of you. The Journal is considerably more polite. It didn't send an email, ask what time the bus was leaving, develop a dietary restriction I hadn't heard about, or lose its suitcase. It just waited.

Apparently, I am very good at dealing with things that refuse to wait. I am less reliable with things that quietly say, "Whenever you have a minute."

By the time I looked properly at the Journal again, the last post was still sitting there. I stared at the date for a moment. September 18? There are missing persons reports filed faster than this.

Then I had an even less admirable thought: "Well, nobody is really reading it yet anyway."

That's a comforting thing to tell yourself when you've neglected a Journal and a bit deflating when you're the person writing it. It's also not true. Some of you are reading it. Maybe someone even noticed that I disappeared. If so, I am alive, the Journal is alive, and its editorial staff has had a talking-to.

What's interesting to me isn't really how I had let several Fridays slip by. It is how easily something I genuinely care about had become invisible simply because nothing bad happened when I didn't do it.

We like to say that somehow the important things get done. I'm not convinced that's true. The urgent things are exceptionally good at getting done. Deadlines get our attention. Other people get our attention. Anything involving a bus has an astonishing ability to become the most important thing in the world. Meanwhile, the things that matter but can wait are often sitting quietly in the corner, assuming we'll eventually remember them.

The Journal can wait. That's actually one of the things I like about it. Nobody particularly needs my thoughts about bidets, Portuguese artisans, or whatever else has caught my attention by nine o'clock on Friday morning. Nothing falls apart if I don't write them down. But I started the Journal because I wanted a place for those stories, observations, odd little discoveries, and things I find myself thinking about as we travel. The fact that they aren't urgent doesn't make them unimportant.

Maybe that's where I went wrong. Making time for the things that matter doesn't necessarily happen just because they matter. Apparently importance could use a better marketing department.

I don't think the answer is another system. I have systems. I have lists, calendars, reminders, and often, reminders to look at the lists. The world does not need another essay about organizing our priorities, and I am clearly not the person who should write it anyway.

Maybe I just needed to notice what had gone quiet. The things that matter don't always get done simply because they matter. Sometimes we have to notice them sitting there patiently and decide to make room for them again.

Which, in this particular case, means writing the Journal.

Three weeks late.

Don't worry; I'm already working on something for Friday.