The Magic of Pottering About
A guilt free trip down the slow road
When a friend of mine moved into her first flat, I asked her how it was going. Her response? She was spending a lot of time, walking from room to room, occasionally moving things from place to place. Just enjoying her new space.
Ah! One of my favourite activities, pottering, pootling, footering, not really doing much. Just enjoying the space. For me, it is indulging in having no particular purpose. Swimming around in possibilities and probabilities. That is the beauty of it. In a world where everything is marked by achievement, where productivity books about maximising your time weigh down bookshelves, where people are encouraged to get up an hour earlier, or work through lunch, the simple art of not really doing much feels like a guilty pleasure.
For some, the word pottering describes a sort of low level tidying up. Pottering around the house might involve colour coding your sock drawer. Pottering around in the garden might mean putting away the bamboo canes loitering in places they shouldn’t. For me, these activities are almost too purposeful for what I mean. When I am pottering, physical movement is part of it but there is no achievement. My socks are not tidied. The bamboo poles are still lurking.
My stepdad, a Glaswegian, talked of going for a footer on his bike. Going for a ride and seeing where he ended up. Total unencumbered freedom. He’d use the same term about my activities but the word had a more accusatory edge, especially when he saw little purpose in what I was doing. I was wasting my time. Messing about.
Our attitude that children should have little down time is pervasive. Their heavily scheduled school time is marked by bells and moving quickly from one activity to another, forgoing any luxury to think about what they have just learnt. After school, they are whisked off to clubs, sports events, extra tuition. The message is that they must be actively doing something at all times. Then we complain when they turn to screentime. Their antidote to all this scheduling.
What is it we fear about empty time? Do we think they may get up to no good, start messing about, become bored? They might. They may also create something wonderful, develop new ideas, rest.
We worry what might happen if our minds are left to wander. Anything could jump in. Idleness is the devil’s workshop after all. Perhaps this is why the word attracts some negative connotations: doing aimless tasks, or engaging in the trivial, or woe betide us, daydreaming. Some of its synonyms attract worse. Consider dawdling, frittering, loitering.
The etymologies of footering and pottering about have similar negative origins. To footer originally came from the French and became an old Scottish insult for the auld enemy. A nuisance. A fiddler or meddler. And pottering came from a verb meaning to poke about. Both in accusation of another’s activities.
But what if you are the potterer? And you are poking around in your own affairs, or fiddling with your own life. Why do people care?
I’ve run into this problem with others on holiday. Particularly the ones who want to make the most of every second they are away. Tick off everything in the guidebook. Cram in as many activities, places, spaces, foods, drinks as is superhumanly possible during a weekend city break. What do I want to do? I like to spend my first few hours in a new place pottering. Wandering around the streets, taking in the sounds and smells. Coming across a little shop where I may indeed indulge in some poking around. Discovering a café or bench which is perfect for watching people walk by. Pottering about.
They may have seen 45 paintings by lunchtime, and I will have luxuriated in one. Looking at it, staring at it, thinking about it. My processing takes time.
So, is banishing boredom a good idea? Apparently not. Pottering is good for our mental health and could even guard against burnout. Our brains just like our muscles need downtime. Time to replenish and forge new connections. Brain downtime, or switching off, or pottering is as necessary to health as food or exercise. It has the added bonus that it boosts our creativity and makes us less stressed.
I try to indulge a little every day. When I get that feeling that my head is too full, my ideas are tangled, I can’t make sense of anything, I stop and potter. I might even clear the post-its from my desk or stroke the cat. Or I may just wander around for a bit with no particular destination in mind. It is surprising how often the answer I have been searching for pops up in that moment. But that’s not the reason for doing it. That’s not why I potter. Pottering is purpose-free which is why it is magical.
