Pause

The soaps went on hiatus today, well, studio hiatus, which means that I and many of the other inhabitants of "soap camp" were in attendance--editing, writing, designing, organizing. But like camp when the summer is nearing a close, "soap camp" today was a shell of its former self, the catering accoutrements mostly gone, the loudspeaker announcements absent. It would have been a little like a ghost town, except for the fact that so many of us were there, and not ghost-like at all. When I was editing (which is in a room separate from all things studio), it was almost as though today was no different than all the others. And yet, we all knew otherwise. Today, though many of us were working, it was as if someone had hit the "pause" button.
 
Today, there were actually many pauses. Pauses to chat with co-workers in your normal circle and those to whom you might usually say only "hello." Pauses to consider how the work you were doing would fit into the big picture. Pauses to reminisce about long past other jobs in television and people worked with years ago. And, I have to say, on all these levels, it felt good to pause.
 
In our day to day lives, well, at least mine, there is "stop," and there most definitely is "go," but there is rarely "pause." Not often do we stop to take it all in, to process before we pick up the pace again. And sometimes the "pause" is what helps us make the most of the "go."
 
So, while this soap "pause" had its unsettling elements, the accompanying opportunity to pause, at least for today, was a useful opportunity. Who knows what tomorrow will hold? But today, we got to pause. And because of that, no matter what happens, I feel as though I'll be a whole lot more ready to hit "go" tomorrow.