Do Be Do Be Do

As a toddler, my sister could sit for hours on a loving lap. Not a sound, not a wiggle. She was born without Squirm DNA. Lovely child. Well behaved. A joy to parent, I've been told.

I'm old enough now that the term "senior moment" isn't funny anymore. But I still squirm as much if not more than I did as a babe.

Wow. It's been a long time since I was called a babe. I suppose it doesn't count, since I gave myself the label.

I'm back on track with my original thought now. See? Senior moment.

Anyway, I look at my husband, who is perfectly happy sitting in a chair. Just...sitting...as long as the chair reclines. Then there's me. I struggle with the idea that "vegging out" is a state of nirvana. It seems akin to strait-jackets, handcuffs, and Chinese water torture.

I have to do. I can't just be. And when I try to be, it comes out sounding like the chorus of "Strangers in the Night." Do-be-do-be-do. My being has a lot of doing woven through it.

And yet, one of my soapboxes lately has been the observation that many of us spend far too much time serving and far too little time soaking.

Methinks she doth protest too much.

I wonder if Shakespeare's first draft of the infamous "To be or not to be? That is the question," came out this way: "To be...or to do?"

And as he soliloquizes, Hamlet paces to the chant, "Do? Be. Do? Be. Do?"