Plans that work and plans that don't

We made our plans for yesterday over a week ago. It was a so-called professional day for the kids, so I condensed my work day into a three-hour morning session and postponed most of my deadlines until the next day. The plan was to leave at noon to pick up Tim’s friend Will, drive to Kimball Farm in Westford, have a picnic at the picnic area there, play a round or two of mini-golf, indulge in Kimball Farm ice cream cones, and head home.

But nothing quite worked out the way we planned. Will and Tim wanted to spend some time at home first playing a video game which went on much longer than we expected. It was 1:30 by the time we left the house, rather than noon. We arrived at Kimball’s with our grocery bag full of sandwiches and chips, only to find signs all over the picnic area saying that food from outside, as opposed to food purchased at Kimball’s, was not allowed. We pretended not to see the signs and sat down at a picnic table anyway, at which point we were swarmed by bees.

We moved our picnic away from the general eating area and over to a bench closer to the mini golf area. The bees were no longer a problem and no one seemed to mind that we were eating our own sandwiches, but then Holly pointed to a different sign – one indicating that mini golf was closed for the day.

“Oh well,” I said. “We’ll finish our picnic, get some ice cream, and think of some other outdoor activity instead.” The kids suggested we go to a park we like in a nearby town: Holly could play on the playground equipment there and the boys would toss a Frisbee around. I gave them money and sent them off to the ice cream counter while I cleaned up our picnic.

But the ice cream counter was closed as well, so we reorganized our plans once again: we’d go to an ice cream parlor in another town and a different park near there. It would take a while to get to, but we had the rest of the afternoon free.

The ice cream parlor part of that plan worked out well, but when we got to the park nearby, we were confronted with yet another sign, this one saying that the playground equipment had been removed from that park and new equipment would soon be installed.

It did seem as if an improbable number of our plans had fallen through, but we all agreed that it didn’t matter too much. We were having fun anyway. We’d had our picnic and some very good ice cream, and the boys said Holly could play Frisbee with them since there was no playground available to her. She wasn’t sure she could handle a game of Frisbee, but the boys were patient and taught her the basics. I sat in the sun and watched.

As I sat there, I thought about something Gretchen Rubin writes in “The Happiness Project”: namely, that one criterion for something being fun is that you look forward to it. When I read that, I realized that for me, it’s often not the case: I usually tend to underestimate how enjoyable something will be, with the excuse that pessimism allows the opportunity to be pleasantly surprised.

And I’m pleasantly surprised a lot, I admit; everything from parties to coffee dates to vacations tend to be more fun than I expected. But after reading Gretchen Rubin’s thoughts on this, I’ve started to think maybe I’m missing out; maybe I’d be having even more fun if I allowed myself to anticipate good times a little bit more confidently.

On the other hand, yesterday proved that sometimes plans don’t really work out, so you might be anticipating a bunch of things that don’t end up happening, like our picnic/mini-golf/ice cream stand scheme. So maybe what actually helps most is just anticipating with confidence that something fun will happen, though you might not know exactly what.

I hoped, and suspected, that the afternoon with Tim, Holly and Will would be a good time. And as I sat in the late-afternoon sun watching them play Frisbee, I conceded that it was. Despite all our plans falling through, we were outdoors and happy and drinking in fresh air and sated with ice cream. Not the fun we’d planned on, but a great time nevertheless.

Playground reading

My favorite measure of a really good day is one in which at some point during a 12-hour period, I have the chance to sit and read the New York Times in the sunlight while the kids play happily together. Today was just such a day. After walking to the town center where they each bought a snack and I talked for a while with a couple from our church who were out for a stroll, we continued on to the school playground. Even though, now that school is back in session, they have the opportunity to play there for at least 20 minutes every weekday during recess, they still had a great time there; clearly novelty isn't important for them to have fun. Or maybe it was the novelty of being there with each other rather than their classmates, at least for Holly.

I sat on a bench, not really watching, just letting them have fun on their own. I did see them clamber up and down the slide a few times, and play hide-and-seek amidst the climbing structure, but mostly I read last Sunday's New York Times, which is a luxury I savor. I do most of my "real" reading, the daily Boston Globe and whatever novel or memoir I'm in the midst of, while I ride my stationary bike in the morning. Getting to the Times, much as I love it, is an extra for me, something I get to do only if there are no other obligations I can or should meet at the moment.

This past summer, that happened a lot, and I felt lucky each time. We'd go to the pond in an adjacent town where we buy a membership every summer, and the kids would play together in the water and I'd sit on the beach and read the New York Times, usually the Style section, book review and NYT magazine from the previous Sunday, sometimes the This Week in Review section as well. Every summer I hear so much about "beach reading," but for a long time, it seemed like a luxury that was out of my grasp. I didn't used to get to the beach that much, and when I did, I had to keep my eyes glued to my children, not to a book. This year, I did a lot of reading at the beach, and it was wonderful.

Later in the afternoon I ran the Stearns Street Loop: 3.2 miles for my 757th day of streak running. Though not as sluggish as yesterday, it wasn't the best. I still felt kind of tired and unmotivated, which I'm afraid is often the case these days, right at times that I should be enjoying running the most: a beautiful, cool, sunny afternoon when I'm not in any big hurry to get back for anything. My knees are fine, my back is fine: orthopedically I haven't changed a bit, and yet it feels like in terms of spirit, I'm just not the runner I used to be. I still want to do it, but it doesn't often bring the sense of elation it once did.

Sometimes it still does. Like last week, the two days I went in the late morning while the kids were at school. So maybe for whatever reason, physiologically late mornings are better than late afternoons.