Can’t I Just Linger? (#sol18 Day 7/31)

Before school started this morning, I picked up my new copy of Eric Weiner’s The Geography of Bliss and began reading.

Wait. That’s not entirely the whole story. Let me redo.

Before school started this morning, I picked up Eric Weiner’s The Geography of Bliss, gave it a good, deep whiff (yep, Mr. Schu and I are both book smellers!), and then cracked the spine. The book had been recommended to me by (shocker) Kathleen Pelley, and its whimsical cover had been staring at me from my desk for a few weeks. It was time to jump in! Besides, who can resist a book with a subtitle of, “One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World”?

As I was reading along and feeling guilty for not attending to my ever-growing piles, this little slice of brilliance hijacked my brain:

But that is the whole point of a European cafe: to linger excessively and utterly without guilt. – Eric Weiner, The Geography of Bliss

Woah. Wouldn’t that be amazing? To be in a place where I could freely choose to linger excessively and utterly without guilt? Woah.

I was inspired right there and then to take a few excessive minutes to linger at my desk. A few minutes without looking at my as-of-yet unready classroom, and without stressing about what time the buses would arrive. A few minutes to just BE. I sat, I closed my eyes, I inhaled, I exhaled, and I imagined that I was sitting outside at a sunny European cafe with no deadlines, no expectations, and no demands on my time.

It was magnificent.

And then it was over.

My eyes opened at the sound of happy kiddos approaching the classroom. I smiled with the inner knowledge of my mini-escape, and then I jumped into the day.

Finding the happiest places in the world, you say? Hmmmmm…