I am sitting at my dining room table as I am writing this piece. Music is issuing forth from my phone; my favorite radio station WXPN is broadcasting a song by Icelandic artist Bjork called Like Someone in Love. It’s Saturday morning, which is ushered in by listening to Sleepy Hollow which includes easing into the day kind of tunes. Now, at the end of March, we are expecting an 80-something degree day. I plan to spend some of it outside. Talk about the month coming in like a lion (we did have several wind storms recently) and going out like a lamb.
Peppermint tea with grated ginger is floating in the mug given to me before my now almost 3 year old granddaughter was born and my now 5 year old grandson was 2 years old. It features three cartoon sharks. Bubbe Shark (Bubbe is Yiddish for grandmother), Dean Shark and the as yet unnamed Baby Shark. Her name is Lucy, by the way, which we found out when she landed Earthside.
I have already completed a few of the tasks I had set aside for today, including filling out my timesheet for my job as a psychotherapist, watering my many plants, and checking my blood sugar as I do twice a day. Soon I will be packing up many books to donate to a local thrift shop. I have more books than any other type of item in my home and if I am not reading them, I want others to be able to enjoy them. Last week when I was sorting through them, I found one I had given to my father a few years before he died in 2008. As I opened it, I noticed that he had signed his name in it, claiming ownership. I smiled and knew immediately I had to pass it on to my sister whose birthday we celebrated last Sunday. When she saw his writing, she cried. She also noticed coffee stains on the cover. He must have been drinking decaf while reading. She has told me since then that although she hasn’t read it, she spends time staring at and running her finger over his uncharacteristically legible handwriting. Our family joke was that he should have been a doctor instead of the milk man and bus driver that he was, based on his scribbly script.
Lately I have been noticing that I have been staring into space more often, as if looking an erased white board that used to have intricate designs and calligraphy emblazoned on them. I give myself grace when I do that since for so many years, my mind was what I call ‘busy-buzzy’ with monkey mind chatter. I can take a breath and re-focus if I have a task to attend to. I can close my eyes and rest a bit. I can take in the beauty around me. At the moment, I am looking at posters, prints, drawings, paintings, butterfly stickers and a tree design with the quotes from 1 Corinthians- “Love is patient, love is kind…” on my dining room wall. Last week when I was interviewed by a local journalist for a piece in a paper for which I write, I was showing her around my eclectically decorated digs and she marveled at what she saw. Some of what embellishes the walls are gifts from family and friends, some have ‘followed me home’ when I have been at stores, flea markets and yard sales. These make my space feel like a haven in which I want to spend increasingly more time, when 10 years ago, I was out and about, more than I was in. Aging? The pandemic? The state of the world as it is now? All of these.
Space gazing beats doom scrolling, which I have been doing far too often since the 2016 election. Going down the rabbit hole is tempting, since I am a therapist and journalist who needs to be aware of what is happening, but it is also perilous since I have to be able to climb out and function. Sometimes I panic when I can’t find the word to express what I am thinking. As a writer and speaker, it would be devastating if I lost that ability to communicate. Okay, Universe, I am not tempting fate by saying that. Got it? I remember hearing a young person sharing her advice a few years ago that serves me to this day. She said that when we forget a word, rather than have the hemispheres of our brains clanking together in an effort to remember, we need to take a breath and let it go and the word will appear. She was right.
Since purpose and activity had long been my M.O., the idea of sitting and wiping the brain slate clean would have been ridiculous to consider before. Now, I find joy and comfort in it. Often, I find that some of my best ideas come when I am not scrambling to fill the void. Imagination thrives on stillness and space between the words.
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Internal image courtesy of author
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
