The Art of Dawdeling

I dawdled this afternoon.  Lucked into a half a day off work in exchange for doing a software test in the middle of the night a few weeks ago.  Strangely, I was able to set aside all of the "have to's" and "ought to's" and "really should's".  Oh sure, there were many aspects of housework I could have accomplished, my front door could have used a good coat of paint (cancel that; it rained in the late afternoon), I am way behind in the reading my Spiritual Director wants me to do and could have used the time to catch up. But no, I dawdled.  I had a leisurely lunch at my favorite kebab place, strolled through Harris Teeter and suddenly realized I could get everything I was looking for cheaper at Target, dropped by Target and found out I was right and checked out their electronics while I was there (just browsing, can't afford to buy anything...its a bit daunting anyway), worked out at the Y and treated myself to the steam room followed by a luxurious warm shower, headed home and attempted to establish a better working relationship with the new computer hard drive.  It still won't let me conveniently get to my favorites,  it multipled my moon phase gadget on my home page by 5 and wouldn't let me delete it until I showed the proper respect.  However, in fairness, the rip of my favorite CD's in media player went smoothly--I was upset that some of them are missing but that wasn't the computer's fault--and we had a major relational breakthrough when the VPN installation went more easily than I could ever have dreamed of.  Much easier, actually, than with the old hard drive. 
But back to dawdleing.  There's a phenonenon called "flow", when you are so absorbed into something that time and distractions drop away, and you drift into this glorious nirvana.  Atheletes and artists experience it, I sometimes experience it when I am at work, and get into a rhythm of working on case after case without stopping (definitiely not when I'm watching the phones!).  Dawdleing today was something like that.  I felt no guilt about not having an agenda, and not getting anything accomplished.  I'm not sure I looked at the time between noon and about 5 PM.  I just did stuff as I wanted to and lived into the moment.
The best thing about my afternoon of dawdleing is that I feel refreshed and rejuvenated.  It truly is an art, and like all art, it gets easier with practice.  Maybe dawdleing can be a form of Sabbath time, of the rest that God has commanded us to take.  Sabbath doesn't have to be a particular day of the week, it really is a state of mind.  Maybe it helps establish those margin things we learned about during Lent.
I hope that I can better live into the art of dawdleing.  This afternoon was an excellent start.