Don’t Just Do Something.

Boredom, Simplicity, Distraction, and Eavan Boland’s "This Moment"

An apple tree, with its apples sweetening…

Aram was pissed. Part of the homework the night before was to do nothing for 15 minutes. The rules were: no computer, no music, no external thing to pass the time. (This was before smart phones, but just barely.) No puttering or cleaning, and nothing that served a purpose in the productivity sense. So- no walking to get from point A to point B, but a walk for walk’s sake was fine.

Aram was mad because he couldn’t sit and do nothing. Or rather, as he told us, he couldn’t do it without feeling awful. I hate just sitting with my thoughts, I hated… having nothing. Aram was big, funny, and smart, with brown skin and curly old testament long black hair. He wore thrifted t-shirts that said things like Jersey City YMCA. 

What do you mean? a classmate asked.

I feel like I spent most of the time just hating on people. Like, automatically. I always thought of myself as a somewhat positive person…

It’s hard to sit still, alone with your thinking. Things rise up to the surface, to your attention-scape. Thinking just keeps going with or without you, whether you’re paying attention to it or not. Almost all of us in the class agreed that doing nothing was harder than it would have been to write a (short!) paper or read and annotate a couple stories from A Celestial Omnibus, our short fiction anthology.

Several kids said something along the lines of I went from ‘yay I have no homework tonight’ to ‘oh my god this 15 minutes is torture.’

In class for the past few weeks, we’d been talking about characters’ relationship to their thinking: their assumptions about other people and themselves, leaps into the future, obsessions with the past, judgements, mistakes, distortions, habits, ruts…and the self-reinforcing cycle of thought-action-consequence. And we were just about to try mindfulness meditation for the first time. 

I was an inconsistent hobbyist meditator (see here), a perpetual beginner. But I did my best to give basic guidance–mostly just reminding students to notice their thinking, bringing them back gently to the breath, and keeping time for a couple minutes or five or rarely but sometimes, ten. Students didn’t have to participate, and they could sit wherever they wanted. Sometimes, one or two kids wanted no part of it, and spent the mindfulness/sitting breaks listening to music on their headphones, which seemed like a fine alternative. Most kids welcomed the chance to sit on the floor after a day at desks that for many kids were too small. They also liked coming to my room during lunch to build stuff with the Legos I brought in from the surplus my son had. 

The actual Jersey City YMCA

I think intentional, mindful pauses help students land and settle after running from one teacher and class to another. Switching between disciplines, personalities, and expectations—and doing that several times a day with three minutes in between.

Looking through old course packets the other day, I saw these thoughts written in sweetly curled cursive next to“The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm”:

Is reading being in the moment? 

How to get calm?

I find it hard to stay in the moment.

I do, too. One of my mental achilles heels is missing people. Sentimentality is a trickster. There are days I miss everyone and everything, and feel like my chest will either cave in or burst. Empty nest. Leaving the classroom. The deaths and distances. Maybe I came into the world primed to miss. The first thing I said to my daughter in that birthing room was “I’m gonna miss you.” And it’s true. I do. Weird thing to say, though.

In yoga class one day we were talking about sensations versus feelings. It was then I realized that if you pare the emotional content from missing, the physical sensation of it feels exactly the same in the body as being in love or having a crush.

The mind is a non-stop entity. It's hard to just sit when you’re sitting, or just read a poem when reading a poem, or just eat when eating. But as Eavan Boland’s poem reminds us, bringing the power of one’s full attention to bear on a moment and all that attends it can yield something extraordinary. 

Aram ended up writing his final paper for our class on the virtues of being bored. At some point after that assignment, he’d adopted the practice of mindful evening walking and kept at it pretty regularly. His friends teased him and called him an old man. He ended his paper with this: I’ve learned being bored is okay. But I still can’t sit still. I think I’ll always take walks, even if people think it’s wasting time. Doing nothing in our culture (American, not really Armenian) is not accepted and is uncomfortable, but doing nothing on purpose just means paying attention. I find it relaxing.

Whenever I read this Boland poem, I remember the prize that comes from holding still, and not looking away. So that when something magnificent happens, you’ll know it’s magnificent. Like a child falling into a mother’s arms.

This Moment

A neighbourhood.
At dusk.

Things are getting ready
to happen
out of sight.

Stars and moths.
And rinds slanting around fruit.

But not yet.

One tree is black.
One window is yellow as butter.

A woman leans down to catch a child
who has run into her arms
this moment.

Stars rise.
Moths flutter.
Apples sweeten in the dark.

—Eavan Boland

***

Here’s a partial list of 10 minute simplicity practices I’d assign in Spirituality in Literature, and also The Natural World in Literature. I’ll put the complete list in“Notes” sometime. Or just ask me and I’ll send it to you.

Outdoor Practices

Visit the moon/night sky, or visit the sunrise.
Lay down on the ground outside and look up.
Build a cairn, being/digging in the dirt.
Collect things outside.
Go on a walk with a parent or loved one (or dog, but not just a poop-walk); or walk alone with no goal.
Observe animals or birds.

Indoor Practices

Mindful eating (Slow down, notice chewing, sit still…)
Withdraw from a habitual media or time-killing practice. (Phone off 20 minutes)
Write a letter and send it.
Memorize a poem you like.
De-clutter your physical space; give some stuff away
De-clutter your mental space; give some stuff away (Forgive? Apologize?)

etc.

xo

That’s it for now. I’m gonna go for a walk.

Love, KLH