Paying Attention: Musings on Monotony
The days are starting to run together. On any individual day I still feel the rhythm of life Charlestoning away. I get up, go for a run or do yoga, eat breakfast, work, text back-and-forth with friends and family, go for a walk with partner and dog, make dinner, watch a show or read a book or play a game. But I struggle to remember what I made for dinner two days ago, what meetings I had on Monday, when we did that virtual happy hour. Routine has its uses in Times-Like-These but when each day so minutely varies it becomes hard to distinguish Tuesday from Friday, week two of #stayinghome from week five.
Earlier this year I became entranced by a stanza from the Mary Oliver poem “Sometimes.” The whole poem rocks but this portion jumped out to me:
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
Throughout the past week this stanza played in my head. “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” Indeed, the collective effort that is Here Today seems in obedience to Oliver’s instructions. And yet.
It becomes hard to feel astonishment when each day feels like another reboot a la Russian Doll or Groundhog Day. I find it challenging to pay attention to this bit of minutiae, to hold onto that particular raindrop/flower/ dogwalk/ Communityepisode/Zoommeeting/earlyrun/cardgame/etc. It seems silly to tell about things so numbingly repetitive, so bloated with their own banality.
And now I shall insert the requisite and traditional Checking of the Privilege. I still have work. I have plenty of food. I have a partner to hug and a dog to laugh at and a lovely house within which to socially distance. All of my people are healthy and well. I’m not whingeing, or at least I’m not meaning to. I’m trying to tell about it, my experience, this moment which is so weird and capacious that I know I, and all of us, are mostly processing and recording, not actually constructing or understanding, wading through the same murky swamp without knowing when it will end or what lies on the other side.
Part of my routine includes mindfulness meditation, several days a week, 15–20 minutes at a time. This style of meditation aims to interrupt our habit of rumination, of mentally traveling backward and forward in time, worrying over events in the past, planning for and anticipating events in the future. When meditating one tries (and consistently fails and then tries again) to be in the moment, to focus on the personal experience of now.
I have derived my own opening statement to get myself into meditation mode. I say, in my head, “This practice is a reminder that this is how you experience time. One direction. Moment to moment to moment. The past cannot be changed or re-accessed. The future is not knowable or controllable. The time is now.” The other day my internal monologuer sniped back, “Sure, but it’s not like this ‘now’ is different than the same time yesterday, or tomorrow afternoon, or who knows how long.” And then the practice kicked in.
Similarity does not matter. Repetition does not matter. Your thoughts on the past or the future, for now, do not matter. What is happening right now? (Being a snarky brat, for one.) True. But judgmental. Reframe. Sigh. Okay. Feeling frustrated, obviously. Constrained. Also sad. And afraid. And this state is fine, it is what it is, it is what it true right now.
Pay attention. As much as you are able, be astonished. Tell about it.
