Laboring on Labor Day

seagull

Rosie the Riveter

It’s Labor Day weekend, 2015.  Labor Day always represents the closure of summer. Summer represents respite to me...days spent at the beach; travel to vacation destinations; a slackening of schedules and to-do lists. But Labor Day also commemorates our days of laboring. I'd like to share a laboring technique that doesn't feel quite so much like labor. I'm sitting under a tent on the beach, laptop in hand with my feet buried beneath soft, crumbly ivory colored sand. I really am working, I'm just doing it to the accompaniment of the rhythmic sounds of a summer ocean. I'm using technology in a way that is advantageous to me; I'm not allowing it to use me (at least not at the moment). My cell phone is near by, as are the sandpipers and ruddy turnstones with their punk rocker hairdos. (Seagull relatives)  Let's face it, most of us have to work. Work can take the form of office labor or the labor intensive responsibilities of caring for aging parents or parenting children/grand-children. Whether we are filling out those endless beginning of school year forms for our children, paying bills or typing on our laptops, do one thing that makes it all more pleasurable. Maybe your scenery isn't a turquoise ocean, but it still could be a garden, a lake, or a breeze brushing your cheek. Our parents taught us work first, play second. I think we are capable of doing both. If you can and when you can, perform your tasks/ work in an environment that is aesthetically pleasing. It will qualitatively improve your production. And besides, you might not mind doing it so much. As the poster child for laboring (literally and figuratively) Rosie the Riveter said, "We Can Do It!" Yes, we can.