In that middle space between platforms, when the train has stopped and you have no concept of how far underground you sit, whether you are under water or concrete, if taxis or people are roaring above, when you have no service and the windows only throw back your reflection, that is true alone time. I avoid this time. I listen to podcasts to walk or to sleep. I call ten people in rotation every day. I always have a book, a notebook, an article, a feed. If I must sit with myself, I plot: mentally scrolling through emails, considering Playbill EPAs, thinking of who to contact when in order to get to the next rung of the ladder. After plot comes panic, all the insidious creeping thoughts—fear of failure, fear of death, failure as death and vice versa, etc. But just beyond that, if you can make it there, are the sandy shores of boredom.
Last week, Quentin asked me why I still work at the bookstore. It’s an hour commute from my apartment. It’s minimum wage (just went up to $16!); after an Upper West Side lunch and the inevitable purchase of at least one book, I usually go home with about twenty dollars from my 5.5 hour shift. It must appear a huge waste of time, which is possibly the point. Though I am lazy by nature, I rarely do anything without reason. It is the byproduct of our national drive to optimize. Everything must be for something, bonus points if you can check multiple boxes: yoga with a friend, work dinner, emails on the toilet, juice your meals and eat in transit. At the bookstore we are not allowed to read and should refrain from using our phones, which means that after dusting, shelving, alphabetizing, tidying, and dj-ing, I become incredibly bored. When I am home with empty time, what is there to do but fret and feel guilty: I should read a play, read a book, edit a script, apply to a grant, ask someone, mentor someone, don’t forget to rest. It is a little gift to myself, to go somewhere where there are clear tasks after which there is nothing else to do and nothing I ought to be doing. I realize the irony of the only place I can achieve mental peace being at work.
I had planned on writing about the hamster-wheel of “strategizing” today. I am reading Bring Up The Bodies and find myself unconsciously mimicking the chess-game style thinking Mantel steeps you in, like there’s a little Thomas Cromwell scratching away in the back of my brain. And then today arrived, and it brought news of a death, and I thought about how much time I spend stemming the tide of grief—unscheduled time, an untethered mind, so much can wash up onshore—grief knows no boundary, it cannot be barred but it can be distracted. I am good at that, I’m doing it even now. I’m at the office, I’m writing this.
xx
Mia
Literally was talking about this with my mentor today... how we don't allow boredom in anymore and how it may be affecting our mental health.
Beautiful piece! Loved reading it instead of answering emails...lol