To experience flow, your ability needs to match the task.

"If a novice nine-minute-mile runner attempts to run a marathon in three hours," sports psychologist Nanette Mutrie says, "the challenge is most likely beyond their capability, so they are unlikely to reach a state of supreme enjoyment, and will probably simply feel anxious and uncomfortable. If, however, their goal time is within reach and they achieve it, they get a sense of having mastered something challenging and feel awash with joy."
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Last summer I brought my daughter to work with me several times. It was, by and large, a disaster. She was old enough to get bored, but too young to entertain herself, and more importantly, I was too inexperienced as a mother to understand that. I remember one particular day I was picking her up out of the portable swing I had optimistically set up in my office hoping she would nap in it while I worked cheerfully and silently nearby, and she grabbed a handful of necklace and tugged. It snapped, my nerves snapped, and beads went everywhere. Child care was finalized a few weeks later, thank goodness, and the experiment to blend work and home was put on hold.

I keep the beads in an envelope in my desk; I run across them every now and then while in search of post-it notes. I was a nine-minute miler, trying to run a marathon. And I was expecting my daughter to do so, which is the greater transgression.

Today, one year later, was a day of supreme flow for the reverendmother. I guess I've trained enough to make it possible, but I know the energy must have been right too. Our child care provider has been on vacation, so we have been doing a little of this, a little of that. C spent this morning with a friend, then came over to the church and entertained herself while I worked. Then she actually napped in my office in her portable crib. Glory be. I closed the blinds, dimmed the lights, read some books, put her in her portable crib, left the room until she was asleep, then returned to my desk piled high with quiet tasks.

For about an hour and a half I worked silently and well. I wrote e-mails, choosing words carefully and typing them gently. I worked steadily through my to-do list, sorting papers and writing notes, lulled by the London Symphony Orchestra playing Clair de Lune. Every stressed-out professional needs to work with a sleeping baby nearby just once. The experience is not about tip-toeing around or fussily shushing the women in the hallway. It is about working mindfully and with intention in a cool, dim place.

When she woke up, it was time to head to the doctor for a checkup. She said goodbye to each person in the office, even hugging several of them--unusual for this sometimes reserved child. But they love her so much, and she knows it. She is not an anomaly here; there are many children her age at the church. But she is the preacher's kid, and as such she belongs to them and they to her.

It was a day of integration, of flow. I was "awash with joy." Sometimes life requires compartmentalization, a hyphen between reverend and mother. Not today.