This morning, I did nothing for two hours. It was a little after seven when I woke up, and still dark. I thought about going back to sleep or getting up to read, but decided to do nothing instead. If I did nothing now, I wouldn’t have to do it later.
When the option of spending two hours doing nothing was suggested in class, I was very resistant to it. I didn’t think I had enough time. More compellingly, I didn’t want to spend that much time alone with myself. Sometimes, my mind is like a forest at night that I don’t want to wander around in alone. I knew spending two hours doing nothing could force me to do exactly that. When Thoreau said “it is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one’s being alone” he hit on something very true (216).
At first I just lay on the sofa, thinking about school: my thesis, which I was stuck on; the homework I wanted to get done; when I’d have time to get my car fixed; go to the eye doctor; go to the dentist. I started thinking about what I should write my next poem for workshop about, then worrying about whether it would be any good. Then I started worrying about whether I’m going to find a nice place live next year, whether I’ll get a job, whether the writing co-op my friend and I want to start next year is going to work out, whether I’ll get into grad school in a couple years. Just lying still was stressing me out. This is not a new experience for me. Because I couldn’t get up and start doing work, I decided to try to concentrate on what was going on at that exact moment, in the room I was in, instead of things that could possibly happen in the future.
I was spending the night with my boyfriend. He lives in a big Victorian house with no central heat. Last night it was five degrees outside, which means that it was maybe seven inside. When I went into the hallway, I could see my breath. The only warm room was the kitchen, where he and his roommates have installed a woodstove. Because we didn’t want to freeze, that’s where we slept. Woodstoves require a certain amount of maintenance, and sleeping next to one less relaxing than it sounds. It’s very cozy and warm, but if you want to stay warm, you have to get up every now and then and add fuel. When a stove is really hot, it ticks quietly, almost rhythmically. When I woke up, the coals were bright red and still hot enough to make the stove tick. There were two tongues of fire on either side of the big log we’d added some time around four in the morning. I lay there listening to them, and watching the fire. When I got bored, I watched the light leak in around the curtains instead. Even though it was freezing in the rest of the house, I was almost too warm lying next to the fire. There are two cats in this house, and one of them was lying by my feet. I couldn’t straighten my legs without kicking him, and my knees were starting to ache. Just concentrating on the things around me made me much calmer. I think I might have fallen asleep (hopefully this doesn’t invalidate the experiment) because I closed my eyes for a minute, and when I opened them the fire was much brighter.
Thoreau also says “we should be blessed if we lived in the present always…and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty. We loiter in winter when it is already spring” (211). I know that I am guilty of this. Living in the culture we live in, it seems almost inevitable. It was worthwhile to stop and try to get out of that mind-set for a minute
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