Gadding Day

Have you considered giving yourself a day off?  I don’t mean a day to do all the chores that are left over from other projects, and not a day where you are simply too exhausted to do anything but stare at the wall or the TV set.  Those kinds of days have their place, but what I am talking about is a planned day off—but not too planned.

Now, I don’t mean a day where you know exactly where you are going, and what you are going to do when you get there.  These days are also good but consider taking some time to just wander off without a clear destination or a stated purpose.  Apparently, the Old English word for this behavior is “gadden” as in “gadabout.”  Consider taking a gadding day off and see what happens.

In this world, where most everything has to be scheduled, planned, and executed in a certain order, this sort of free-floating wandering seems especially precious.  I don’t know about your life, but ours demands a considerable amount of planning.  There are doctor and dentist appointments to schedule (and show up for), tests to be taken, home maintenance and repair to be arranged, and bills to pay—all at a certain specified time.  And many of these things seem to demand various amounts of negotiation with others who are in the same boat as we are.

Of course, this makes for an efficient and well-ordered life, but honestly, it doesn’t do a lot for any free-floating creativity.  It seems to me, that creativity is not so easy to fit into a strict time schedule.  It requires a certain amount of empty time and new experiences.  That’s where gadding comes in.  I think that the perfect scenario for this activity would be to get into your car and drive off without any clear idea of where you are going.  Or you might be on your way to do something practical and just go off on a lark instead.

We are not talking about an extended adventure here; that is different again.  I mean something fairly close to home that doesn’t require much malice aforethought.  You might stumble on a small carriage museum tucked away on a side street or happen on a dog show at the state park.  You might find a covered bridge that you can actually drive across, or maybe the steam train is just coming into the station.  It is surprising what you can see when you are not looking for it.

So, consider a day of gadding.  Not every experience is going to be wonderful, of course.  There were also excursions when it poured rain, or the mosquitos were so voracious, we had to escape back to the car.  But this is all grist for the writer’s, painter’s, or craft person’s mill.  Mostly, a trip out is generally very pleasant, mostly free, and often surprising.  Consider all the new ideas you might get to put into a painting, write about in a story, or make into a poem.  I think that you will find that gadding is well worth the time you devote to it.