I get mildly depressed from time to time. I don't know whether it's an actual clinical depression or not, but my mood is easy to spot. I'm usually wearing my most comfortable pair of black, paint-spattered sweats, my hair is stretched tight into a too-small rubber bandand my eyes are smudged with black specks from my day-old mascara.
And I bake. Baking is the perfect form of therapy. You get to be creative and eat at the same time.I was finishing off the last of a batch of walnut- and chocolate chip-covered brownies when M. Scott Peck (500 weeks on the New York Times best seller list for "The Road Less Traveled") told Oprah Winfrey that his secret to success was that he spent two hours a day alone by himself "mostly thinking.
Even in my sugar-induced state, it was easy to see the beauty of this.
Two hours alone. The idea took hold in my imagination, and I decided to go for it. I got up and dressed - even applied makeup - and cornered my 13-year-old son.
"What do you want?" he said.
"How do you know I want something?" I replied.
"I can just tell. What do you want?"
"Two hours."
"You want me to baby-sit for two hours?"
He's so perceptive. "Uh-huh."
The negotiations begin. He wants five dollars, a trip to Burger Supreme for a gyro, and he doesn't want to baby-sit at home. "Two hours at the SCERA pool," he says.
Gees, he drives a hard bargain! I relent, wondering what M. Scott Peck has to do to get two hours.
So I drop them off and check the time. I sit on a park bench. I begin thinking. I'm thinking the park bench is kind of hard. I'm wondering why I got all dressed up to sit under a tree. I'm thinking I could have bought a lot of chocolate chips for the cost of two free hours. I'm wondering what it would cost me to get two free hours every day.
I'm thinking Joshua is a better negotiator than I am. I'm thinking that swimming sounds like a good idea. Couldn't I swim and think at the same time? If I was wearing my sweats, I could just jump in. If I go home and get my bathing suit, my two hours will be up.
I'm wondering if this thinking thing isn't overrated. No wonder it's the road less traveled.