A few days ago, sitting in the sun in the local playground, I put down my phone, lifted my face to the sun, and started to feel guilty about doing nothing.

It’s a beautiful February afternoon, warm enough to not need coats. The Cowgirl is swinging down the slide belly first, yodelling “Nants ingonyama” like she’s opening the Lion King in the West End. The atmosphere has that heavy stillness pulsing through it, as though the air itself is holding its breath, waiting for the coming of summer. Of course, the fact that it’s February and feeling like midsummer is a worry, but winter is still a recent enough memory that it is one I’m willing to ignore right now.

In my mind, I rewind a few days, to a wind-battered beach in North Wales. Perfect kite-flying weather sees me chasing tails and laughing until my blood tingles. We even get the kite off the ground every once in a while. The Paleontologist digs as deep as she can, delighted when she reaches water, finding treasure and convinced it’s a real dinosaur tooth. She stands triumphantly in the newly created moat, in snow boots and a bobble hat, waving the tooth above her head. And in the moments I’m not running after precious comfort blankets or untangling kite strings, my mind is actively seeking how I can use this time more constructively, what I should get ticked off The List while everyone else is happily engaged in activity.

That gnawing question ignites in my belly every time I stop to play, or think, or pray. I can manage board games for about 20 minutes before cracking and putting on a load of washing. Lunch anywhere but my desk, over marking or incomplete registers, prompts mild panic and causes me to spend the time I should be enjoying food and conversation crafting unnecessary excuses instead. Playing football in the garden? Maybe, but only after I’ve done this weeding. And hung out the washing. Oh, and just picked up these bits of rubbish… By which time the moment has passed, the TV has responded faster than I have, and another opportunity has been lost.

The compulsion not to waste time snakes under my skin and corkscrews into my bones. Each morning, the ticking clock dominates, driving any form of enjoyment further away with every click, ever conscious of every moment wasted not doing Something Useful. How quickly can the children get up, dressed, and into school? Will it be before the traffic locks down every route into work? Once I’m in college, time distorts like a carnival mirror, making everything both bigger and smaller at the same time, consuming everything that lies before it, not letting me finish anything for good. Then, with a rush, the end of the day comes, and – deep breath – it’s time to do it all again in reverse, like some twisted Bear Hunt. Back through the traffic, swear swear, crawl crawl; back through the school gates, hurry coats, hurry bags; back to the kitchen, eat your food, eat your food; back to the girls’ room, pajamas, teeth, story, bed; then they’re tucked in and I’m cowering under my own covers, muttering “I’m never going on the school run again”. Except, of course, I do, tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.

And, throughout all this, pushing me on if I ever catch a glimpse of a pause, is that simmering volcano in my belly. Keep running, don’t stop, keep moving. As though if the merry-go-round slows down the centre of gravity will be lost and we will all go spinning off into the uncertainty and vacuum of space. Busyness keeps the wheels spinning; fun makes them wobble. Cooking for dinner whizzes the wheels along smoothly; baking for fun gets a whole lot of flour in the cogs and clogs them right up. Getting up early to go for a run (well, that may be pushing it, but a wheezing jog, anyway) gives a good push start to that day’s rotation; meandering along the same paths in the balmy afternoon sun pulls back on the axle… will it stop? Making Memories and photographing and Facebooking everything keeps the fun boxed in and safely contained, weighed and measured; the same activities done spontaneously and without record feel as though they never really existed. Facebook, Netflix, blogging – things that keep and hold my attention spin the gears and ease the pressure building up below the volcano. But nothing removes it altogether.

Going back to that beautiful coatless afternoon in the park, I sit, trying to ignore my internal volcano, and think about the blossom on the trees, and the daffodil buds, and the lilies in the field. I have always seen that Biblical analogy as a message not to worry – one which I’ve followed only very infrequently. But this day, I accept that it is also saying that these amazing things are so very temporary. They are beautiful, but only if you give them time to speak to you. Otherwise, you miss their majesty because you are too busy with your head in the washing machine and your mind on what happens next. Like life, and Easter chocolates, and childhood, once it’s gone it does not return. So take the time, stop, and enjoy the sunshine, the yodelling, the chocolate. Let the volcano bubble; just keep checking in to make sure the scary Mount Doom eruption is still a little way off. When that moment comes, by all means, let the craziness out or everything will be destroyed by your own screaming. But until then, life is these still, unscheduled moments, and missing them is missing the point behind all the busyness.