I’ve often considered that it takes running at some percentage far over 100% to keep the complex machinery of a working mom life humming… and for me, that generally equates to a brain that is in constant overdrive. For years I’ve marveled about my husband’s ability to switch into sleep mode with the very ease of flipping the light switch to “off.” At the moment upon which I finally get to LIE DOWN at night after every other thing is done (or as done as it’s going to be), the transition to sleep can require a much more elaborate process (in turn, inpsiring frustration at the inefficiency!)… and okay, I admit it, sometimes the tempting shortcut of an Ambien.

Yet what about the little cracks of downtime that exist in even the busiest of days– and by this I mostly mean: commuting. In that half hour, or hour, that it takes to go to and come from work, I find that rather than finding in these moments a respite from thinking-thinking-thinking, this is when my mind rushes itself with a flood of new thoughts… like a runner whose heart thumps and breath races more when they pause for a red light. Sitting on the train (or alternatively, standing on the train crushed against a panoply of humanity), my mind proves again that physics law that “space abhors a vacuum,” seizing this opportunity to focus on To-Do’s Not-Done, new preoccupations, or new variations on old ones.

That’s why in the past year or so, I’ve come to love Su DoKu. Really. For someone self-determined as “not a numbers person,” that little 9×9 box of squares has saved me, from myself– with its humble newsprint-coated offering of a moment of mindLESS absoption, that enables a simple yet otherwise elusive escape. It’s my little piece of candy to myself, a willing if slightly guilty trade-in of reading trade magazines for one of the two little puzzles in the NY Post. In fact I’m proud to say I’ve graduated to the “Difficult” ones (at least as this one tabloid categorizes them). The trivial mental dance of finding the right order of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 in a row, column and box is enough to push other preoccupations over to the sidelines (where they kindly idle by the punch table until they rhumba their way back onto the dance floor again the moment the paper has to be tossed).

Here’s the thing– more today than ever before, with our own insular concerns compounded by headlines that implore us to worry even more– we all need our Su Dokus.

Though I am considering mixing things up and giving the crossword puzzle another try.