In Defense of Playing Hooky: Mothers of Invention

I’m playing hooky right now. I probably shouldn’t write that because who knows who is liable to read it. But it’s the truth, so there it is. My kids are at school. The office where I do my “job-job” is across town, lights darkened, computer off. The garden is outside growing weeds and flowers on its own sweet schedule. The dog is snoozing. And the dishes are heaped in the sink. This gives me exactly an hour and a half to write.

Yesterday I was invited to an impromptu breakfast held by friends who just completed graduate school. I don’t usually do spontaneous things because my schedule is so ossified that getting it off kilter is a potential disaster. But it was raining and Tobey, my three-year old, was in an unusually delightful mood. When we entered the tiny screened-in-porch and looked at all the young faces, I had a momentary pang of “I don’t belong here.” It went fine, of course, especially with Tobey doing a special butt wiggle dance every time he inhaled another piece of bacon, much to the amusement of his child-free audience. My only internal pause came when one writer asked another, “How often do you write?” She said she worked in spurts, but when she did get to it, it was an all-day affair. The man asking the question said he tried to get in five hours every morning.

Five hours?! My stomach flopped. If that’s what it took to be a Real Writer (c’mon all of you freelancers and Sunday hobbyists, you know there’s always that burning question: What does it mean to be a Real Painter? A Real Musician?), well, I could just throw in the towel now. Because in addition to reading Green Eggs and Ham twenty times this week—not an exaggeration as my daughter is learning to read and this is her Master Text of choice—taking my son to T-ball, doing all of the usual school pickups, and keeping the house off the Department of Health and Human Service’s list of disaster zones, I also have a part-time job and freelance gigs. Five hours a day? How was any parent without a trust fund supposed to accomplish such a feat?

One very short-term and imperfect answer is to play hooky. Vacations are great for resetting the whole creative apparatus. Once a year, I manage to get away to a friend’s beach house, and it’s always an Experience. I return home feeling wonderfully springy and full of possibilities, as though someone had fine-tuned my eyes, heart, and brain. But I don’t usually get much done when I’m there. In fact, getting stuff done would circumvent the whole purpose.

Playing hooky is different. Like today: I’m focused only on my keyboard and these thoughts, this piece of prose. As I said, the kids, the garden, and the house are off limits. This can be challenging. “Oh, just one load of laundry,” I’ll think, and suddenly I’m scrubbing grout in the tub.

I’ve found that one of the best ways to play hooky is to do it in someone else’s home, away from my domestic temptations.