it is the weekend and i have thoughts: alone & uninterrupted
In which I give myself the gift of solitude and an essay tumbles out
Tonight is the first night I've had in months where I have found the time, the space, the quiet, the environment, and the mindset all aligning to land me in the place where I can sit and sort through my own thoughts. Amid the fullness of my life, it continues to be a vital fact that I need solitude in order to create. I love people and I love collaborating. I believe to my very core that all of life is art, and do my best to live out that value on a daily basis. But I piece together all the learning and weave the threads into something cohesive only when I am alone and uninterrupted.
Lately I haven't been protecting that time with as much conviction as I'm realizing I need to. Especially as a balancing counterpart to the adventurous, spontaneous way I like to live life, it's even more important for me to exercise boundary-setting. To practice intentionality and honor the part of my process that requires tuning in to my own energy and no one else's for a little while. Without feeling guilty for doing so! Or, perhaps more realistically, while feeling guilty for doing so and accepting that might just be the feeling at times but doesn’t need to be the story.
Sometimes I crave long stretches of time in which to sit and watch and think and flow and wonder. I had some of that time today, and my brain was already searching for other things I was "supposed" to be doing. But I sat through that discomfort and pretty soon the monkey mind calmed down its chatter after realizing the body was not going to honor its demands.
My phone was in the Apple Store surgery room (pulled the ol’ classic “crack the screen a week after getting a brand new phone” move) for a couple hours, so I wandered the streets of downtown Palo Alto phoneless. At first I felt anxious and disconnected. But then I breathed. I paused. I waited for an instinct to create a sensation in my body and turned in that direction.
And almost immediately following the decision to move the anxiety through, a sudden relief flooded in. I found the urge to be tethered to my phone drop away. Life and all the intriguing ways in which to pay attention to it seemed to open up in front of me. I would ask strangers for the time on occasion, though to be honest, I found myself not really caring very much about the answer. I found my own rhythm, and it felt infinitely better than the rhythm of the clock. Kairos over Chronos, baby.
I people-watched. I listened to many snippets of conversation float past. I ordered a banana Nutella crepe from a cafe and ate it outside while writing in my tiny notebook. I admired many views of architectural details or filtered light that I would have taken photos of. I almost got to the end of the book I’m currently reading. I cried on a sidewalk bench at a few particular emotionally resonant paragraphs.
I just lived. And it filled my cup in a way I’ve needed for a long while.
It reminded me of the days years ago when I would take walks to the nearby lake and leave my phone at home and just write in a journal. There was nothing happening really. But there was also everything happening. And I got to be with all of it, all of the nothingness and all of the everythingness, for a few exquisite moments in deep time.
It’s in those moments that the connecting of all the dots happens. Things slot into place in the spaciousness that don’t quite do so in the rush and noise of the world as it usually turns. And once again I am brought back to the truth that this is the whole point: not to have time, but to make time.
This started out as a Very Tiny post and turned into a Real Boy. Another sweet side effect of having space & time for my process! Who woulda thunk.
While I might not churn out an essay every week, I do love the idea of getting back to a consistent publishing schedule. I’ve been realizing lately that I think I just don’t get that excited about crafting longform posts in the way I typically see on here. I know that’s what the platform is for, and clearly an essay occasionally rears its head (case in point), but what excites me way more is exploring post formats that feel more collage-like in their structure, different pre-existing elements coming together to form something new. A little chaotic, a little mysterious. Language and visuals and other forms of as-yet-undiscovered communication coalescing, delivering messages even I don’t realize until they arrive.
To be perfectly honest, I don’t know what that means yet or what that’s going to look like. But I’m finding my way back into my creative groove, and so we’re going to find out together.
Give yourself a good weekend, friends.