To Be or To Do? (Warning! This might be whining)

Ferris Wheel on a crisp December day

I am struggling with establishing a routine.  If I lay out my day in a structured to-do list kind of way, I worry that I won't get everything done.  After all, there are  many things I want to see and experience and accomplish in the relatively short time I have left on the planet.  This list never seems to include much time for day-dreaming.  The important thing is "To Do," right?

And if I have a binge day--reading or watching back to back to back episodes of Downton Abbey, I am consumed with guilt that I didn't get the bathroom floor washed or I didn't get my bike ride to and fromTrebes accomplished. Can I simply spend an hour at a cafe with a coffee, watching the Carcassonne world go by without feeling like I am a lazy slug?  Isn't "To Be" one of the main reasons I came to the south of France in the first place?

I believe the great fly in this ointment is sleep. Too much?  Not enough?  At the wrong times?    I have yet to establish a satisfactory waking pattern.  Most mornings, because of the dim dawn light, I don't even open my eyes until nearly 9:00.  That sets my day off badly, as I feel like I am running late.  For what?  Who is going to point fingers at me and say I should have risen with the chickens?  (Well I have news for that person--here the chickens are just waking up at 9:00, too.) The other morning I was up and about at 6:15, but by 8:30, right in the middle of putting leftovers in separate containers, I was overcome with a fatigue so great that all I could do at that instant was lie down...and went promptly to sleep for two hours.  I am not sure I gained anything by arising so early.  As a child, I could never take a nap while the sun shone; now I find that all it takes for me to fall asleep is to get myself into a horizontal position.  That goes for bedtime, too.  Staying asleep when it's dark?  That's another matter entirely.  I am counting on the absence of alarm clock pressures to eventually sort itself out and I will be able to come to some equilibrium in my sleep patterns.  One thing I know is that I am sick to death of thinking about it.

I have envied forever those lucky, lucky souls who wake early, alert and ready to rush into their days.  It always seemed to me that they simply had more time to get more things done than people like me who drag into the day.  

I have always felt that I functioned best with the structure of a schedule.  Now I am trying to establish a way of organizing my own time so that I can get everything done that I would like to do and not feel such resentment as I feel about having to be at a meeting today at 14:30. Working with my  photographs, practicing the dulcimer, reading, writing, getting in a several hours' walk, marketing, exploring the city and its environs, going to the library, running errands, correspondence and housework to be done--are clamoring for my time. 

I was at the market by 9:30 this crisp morning, arriving before lines had formed at Monoprix, and there were still full selections at the fruiter's. Most of the stores don't even open until 10:00, so there was no temptation to go in and have a look around.  I do have a meeting at 14:30 at church this afternoon, and I think the resentment I feel about it has less to do with it being a demand on my time today than it has to do with being a demand from someone who wants me to make a regular commitment of my time.  I have worked on some correspondence and have written this blog.  Lunch is warming on the stove.  I am doing the best I can, I think and that's all I can ask of myself.  I have to believe that it is possible to both "do" and "be."

Hotel Bristol across from the Canal du Midi