Because Five Minutes

Anyone else trying to do too much?

A brief interlude in your day. A coffee break together. For a moment. xoxox

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What do you do with a five-minute window? Perhaps, like me, you try to cram in All. The. Things. Write your novel in five minutes? Empty your inbox? While on a work call? Sure. Of course.

A few days ago, between the burgers on the barbecue, the sweet potatoes in the oven, and my family arriving home for supper shimmered an empty house.

A shining five minutes. Nothing needed to be done.

Those five minutes looked like a Saskatchewan lake does on a clear, crisp day; deep water, cool and clear. The smell of the burgers was meaty and full of fire and it was absurd because it was the middle of winter but warm enough outside to barbecue in the prairies. The pine trees at the back of our ‘yard’ (I’m from the UK originally and love the shifting words between countries—a whole other essay, one day) are tall and lovely, but they reminded me of forest fires and smoky skies. The unseasonably warm weather worries me: the climate emergency of a summer on fire in Canada rose in my mind like the smoke from the barbecue.

But.

I had five minutes and a novel to write. No time to think about fires and pine trees.

The burgers were sizzling. Five minutes.

In my head, my story was unspooling. I’m a writer working on a novel where a murder happened twenty-two years ago. My main character is starting to think her perfect husband has a ghastly connection. I need to dig deep into character motivation when she first sees someone from his past.

I tried to write that scene over earlier in the day. But I slept through my alarm. I’m tired—we’re up at night with my mother-in-law who has Alzheimer’s.

My novel needs more than five minutes. But in the smoky seconds, I didn’t want to believe it.

I have a file called Workspace, designed to show me exactly where to pick up when I have a window. Five minutes isn’t enough but my giddy mind stays hopeful.

I have a note to myself so I know exactly where to start. The next sentence could take five minutes, perhaps. One. Sentence.

And.

Yet.

I’m in the lake of my mind, sitting on the dock, my feet not even in the water, a dreamy look in my eyes as I gaze over the water.

Because I have five minutes. When I flip it like that and stop trying to fill them, they expand. Five. Minutes.

They are magical and lovely and I’m hanging out in those five minutes and not doing anything at all. Not trying to write my novel or clean a drawer or run laundry or answer the siren beep of the timer telling me to flip the burgers or respond to an email or hand in any work. My phone rings.

None of it.

I’m beside a lake in Saskatchewan in my mind, looking out over the cool water, considering swimming like I did every day I could last summer. I stepped swiftly down the ladder at the end of a wooden dock, feet, calves, backs of knees, thighs, before releasing to push into the water. The shock of the cold, the swift reaction of my body, the slow forced breath out to regulate every part of me.

Once, there was a muskrat, eating on another dock, ripping into reeds, ignoring me.

When the children were little, we read a book over and over called Five Minutes Peace that my mum (UK spelling ;-) gave me. It’s old fashioned and yet the spill over of the wild children into the elephant mum’s everything is eerily cognizant of being a mum in my life, many years later. The elephant mum doesn’t get five minutes.

That’s a thought about emotional load and motherhood for another essay. I plan to write it. Perhaps next time I have more than five minutes.

Writing takes time. So not as I flip burgers. I can see as I share this that it was absurd to believe I could write my novel in five minutes—even a sentence of it. Perhaps as absurd as barbecuing in February in snow.

Yet. I still had an empty space, room to think, a tiny amount of time that became vast.

Sometimes, I have to take what’s truly offered. Five minutes peace.

Here I am letting go, getting into the water. Join me at the lake, look at the view, or swim with me. May you have five minutes peace today.

Sent with love and gratitude.

Alice

xoxox

Please share this with anyone else who might enjoy a moment beside the lake together.

Read More: Happiness Falls by

Angie Kim

is the book I’ve adored this week. I finished last night and have more to share with you about it. Have you read it? What a gorgeous work. Dive in, dive in.

Also, muskrat!