For some people, it takes a lot of effort to do nothing. I am one of those people. I have the same thought every single day:
Me to me:
What do you want to do today?
Me to me:
Nothing.
Me to me:
Sounds exhausting...
I have yet to master the art of doing nothing. My mind is an endless loop of tasks, ideas, activities. Things that I must do, I want to do, I should do. Things that if I do not do, no one else is going to do them for me.
So I arrive on vacation in this state...nothing to do...but I have my own ideas.
So far today I have accomplished the following:
Drinking coffee while I sat naked in the hot tub as I looked out over the Pacific Ocean...foggy and soggy and breathtaking.
I have talked to my mom awhile.
I have taken both dogs outside for a few minutes.
I built a fire in the fireplace because it is cold as fuck here.
Now I sit in the living room as I look out onto the drastic and moody Pacific Ocean, writing.
So far I think I am doing pretty good at doing nothing...and by saying that, I do know that I have not really done nothing.
I crave this slower pace. I fantasize about having a place of my own to come to that is here on this coast, maybe with a boyfriend and spending a week reading, watching movies, taking slow walks on the beach. Spending the entire days doing as little as possible. Of course, the way my life is this is a much more likely solo thing, which is good to.
And yet, having said that, I am hard wired to go. I wake locked and loaded and that is how my days just go. Right now, I am good. No one but my mom and the dogs are up and so we are lounging, she being a writer too so she gets that I do not want to talk. I just want to sit in the quiet and be still, well except for my fingers.
I think what I love about this coast is the incongruence of the space: hard rocky shores, violent white capped waves that thrash the coastline, the soft, feathery fog that seems to shroud the harshness of the seaboard, stilling it, holding it gently so that all its violence can be washed away. I am in need of that also.
It is easy to miss all the doing nothing that is going on here. But I am paying attention. I am watching. I am still. I am here. I am doing my best to join the do nothing spirit. And, of course, I am struggling a bit.
But I have surrounded myself in a place that supports my true desire to do less. To sit and marvel at the life I get to live. To read, relax and enjoy the moments that I get to live this life.
And as I do that, the fog begins to lift while a family of deer walk by completely vibing with the lack of hustle. And they are my teachers. Quiet walks that lead nowhere. Sits that produce no lists of things to accomplish or things to do.
The sun begins to make an appearance which usually sets off in me an energetic vigor to leap into the day. But here the fog and sun duel it out, the fog winning more than the sun. And for me, right now, I am routing for the fog. The fog having my back in all of my efforts to do absolutely fucking nothing.
