What you don’t notice until after you have your first born child is the sense of time. Before your 40s the world and pace is so rapid that two months go by in the span of weeks. Having a baby has for the better instilled a return to the pace of experiencing the minutiae of the moment, seconds and minutes.
When you’re caring for a new human and working from home, you gain a newfound appreciation and sense for living by a 3 or 4 hour cycle. Then you appreciate the minutes that you do have for yourself.
I just noticed that on a Sunday night, a week night, multiple bedroom lights going off like clockwork in the two floors across from me. A midnight ritual. I claim to not know the residents directly across from us on the second floor for the past decade, but I imagine a 60-year old couple with much of their family scattered about Long Island or States Island.
Unabashed, holding Izzy’s hand as she drifted off to slumber, the neighbor stuttered to finally turn his or her lights out at 12:15 am. Then as the ceiling light shuttered, what appeared like the more light sleeper of the two turned on what appeared to be a camping headlight or bedside flashlight beamed at the window, then semi circles to the floor and off again. Proof was in the pudding that he was having doubts about having arranged breakfast or the coffee machine in advance of the 6:30am wake up alarm.
I should note that the windows are glazed over across from us and curtained so as to not create the sense that we’re all just peeping Tom’s.
What a greater sense of dwelling in the moment than your infant sighing and drifting into slumber in paced breathing while a near domino chain of lights get flipped off for the night. Kew Gardens and Richmond Hill already have a reputation for a “sleepy village” vibe. This was just outlining the facts.
An added bonus to working from home while having a six-month old gem of a baby who is low maintenance. It’s almost like you can get a chance to smell the roses again. People around you who work as data architects, teachers, nurse practitioners and Con Edison surveyors with their own inspections van parked around the corner.
Sure as a professional your life is busy and crammed full of appointments and routine meetings. But there’s coffee for that. Celebrate dwelling in the now when you can!
Michael Schoeck 