Demand my full attention, even briefly

I want to brew my coffee while standing at the counter with my leg up in tree pose and look out the window without looking at my phone. Maybe think of books or food or wonder about the check engine light in my car. I want to read the New Yorker essays all the way to the bottom without looking ahead to see how long I have left because at the same time I am reading, I am thinking about my bank account and my son’s texts that keep beeping a symphony on the counter. I want to get lost in other worlds and get the fuck away from my own. What did I used to think about when water was boiling on the stove? Was I coaching it with my voice and dancing around the kitchen? Is my phone now in my hand while I scroll through the Instagram of someone I really don’t like to stave off the time?? The time is 7 fucking minutes. What is wrong with me? Am I intolerable to myself while on a walk or driving or even sleeping nowadays? I cram podcast after podcast into my earholes to what? Calm myself? I now have entire catalogues of serial killers and true crime stories baked into my beautiful cortex.

When I stand in lines I nearly die without something. Anything. And waiting rooms. I left everything in the car the other day and was in a doctor’s office. I looked around and every single person was on a device. I stared and stared at all the faces and made up stories in my head. This was a bit encouraging to remember that my mind can wander, that I can be bored. But I don’t let myself enough. I mean, I did read everything as a kid. I have always been a consumer of words—the cereal box, etc. So, it pains me that I am allowing time to float around in some sort of antiseptic restlessness. Why do I need to be doing something or learning something? Where is my body? Where is my mind?

The other day I just had to know how old an actor was in the middle of watching a film. This, my friend, seems absurd. I’ve forgotten how to sink into anything. I slapped my own hand. At least my love makes us listen to records all the way through very often and this is a kind of magic that I only have started doing again in the last couple of years. To be swept away and to listen to the songs you love and the ones you would never have let yourself get to know because you are so damn needy for what you want all the time.

I want to have more tolerance for nothing. Help my nervous system not need to fill everything all up. Not to turn boredom into anxiety. I think we can rewire ourselves, right? Do I want to? Yes.

I want to give myself over to everything again. That may be my resolution. I ain’t about to stop creating art and being on the internet but I need to read more real books instead of my Kindle and I need to stop being half there. What if I never had my phone in my hand all year when I was with another human being? What if we did this? I am pretty damn certain I am not the only one who is this fucked up. Isn’t it weird? I want to notice the marks on the stove. I want to stay inside of the talk I am having with my kid. I want to zone out. I want to be uncomfortable instead of medicating myself. This could be a whole other post about so many things.

I am curious, that’s all. I am also really looking at myself. AGH! The horror. I think journaling and reading and nature and all the things are good, but I think it’s real work if I want it. I mean, I’m a poet or a writer or whatever and I should linger on the edge of her shoulder more, think about afternoon sex, the light dripping down my bedroom wall, wonder why someone is frowning, remember what my mother smelled like, imagine a whole field of red poppies swaying in the wind, excavate the memories of being a child. I really need to make up a whole mythology of my neighbor as he shovels snow. I should be doing all of that while I wait for the Carfagna’s meat counter guy to call my number. While I sit and wait for my father at the dull dermatologist. While I drive my big car south. While I sit at a table full of laughing friends. While I turn over in bed and look at luminous skin. While I still can.

ilysm

xo

Amy

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