little white truths

Apologies for the absence. But breaks, I think, are not only important for writing but for life itself. They restore your perspective. Bring you back to the mark.

As I mentioned here last week, I took a short ‘life break’ because I needed to sit back for a while and take stock. Basically I took some time out and ate heaps and played with my puppy. Yay to that.

Over the years I’ve learned (the hard way, unfortunately – ha) that it’s important to take a step back sometimes when you get so overloaded with work, dealing with your tax, juggling a suddenly larger social life, general adminny shit on the home front (and by that I mean the usual domestic rubbish like having to arrange someone to come and fix up your dead heating unit – you know the crap), and get so lost in your writing that you need to come up for air.

Does anyone else feel sometimes that they’re so swamped by the terrors (and wonders) of life that they’re not actually experiencing it – they’re just doing it? My golly I do.

The problem when this happens is that you lose yourself in actions and forget how to be part of the world. You become a spectator. I practise mindfulness meditation to help with this, and while it absolutely works, sometimes life swamps you and no amount of mindfulness will stem the flow. Or maybe that’s just me. I reckon there’s a part of me that’s half-addicted to running around like a headless chook and just getting things done – because I fool myself into thinking that crossing 564 things off my list is more important than breathing.

For all of us, there are times when life does get busy and there’s not a lot we can do about it. You know, in the lead up to Christmas or the end of financial year, when many professions (mine included) explode as clients decide everything has to get done before those ‘essential’ dates. My father, who’s a doctor, says it’s the same in his profession. Many patients decide they’d ‘better get that minor operation done’ or ‘better get that lump checked out’ before the Christmas break, so they can start the New Year afresh. I get that, and I think we all do it – we create lines across time to give ourselves starting and finishing points. Certain periods in life feel more urgent than others, even though they aren’t really at all.

When things feel a little more ‘urgent’ (busy work periods that need to be managed to the best of our ability at the time), this doesn’t mean we can’t train ourselves to take breathers. I remember one day not so long ago when I was ridiculously busy at work (I work mostly online doing writing and editing for a professional firm), and I had this one especially horrendous day when I had to go across town in the morning to the sleep therapy group I was doing (after having been on my computer working since 5am), then I had to leave straight from there and go to the office for a couple of meetings, then from there I had to bolt home for an important appointment and had a friend’s birthday dinner after that. I was tired – nay, I was shattered – I hadn’t been sleeping well (even worse than usual) and it was one of those horrific days that I’ll probably always remember.

But I found a moment.

That moment came when I was sitting on the tram, heading towards the appointment from the office. I’d picked up some take away rice paper rolls from one of my favourite lunch spots (Rolld) and was excited about stuffing them down on the journey. Unfortunately, it was around the Grand Prix weekend and my (usually empty) tram was packed to buggery.

I shuffled through right up to the back and found a ‘seat’: in my freshly dry-cleaned suit, I sat down on the grubby stairs on the right-hand side of the tram (the one where the doors weren’t opening at each stop since we were heading south). There I sat, among hoards of hot and smelly people, surrounded by all too much noise and thick, secondhand air. Before me the city streamed past the window: the traffic, the tourists, the high rises grubby and bare.

When you’re sitting on the ground it’s a bumpy ride, but I didn’t notice. In the 22 minutes it took to reach my appointment, I found my own personal space – a tiny, precious bubble that nothing could breach – and inside it I slowly ate my three rolls and blankly watched the world spool past. A scenery I was aware of but couldn’t quite see. I heard no sound, felt no bumps and enjoyed every single movement of my jaw.

It was a sublime 22 minutes of peace in my day – the only peace I’d yet been able to snatch through the chemical headache in my head, created by severe sleep deprivation, and worsened by the crazed mechanics of life.

And there I could breathe.

I’ve found that breath again. And I can now return to my writing – the other true oxygen of my life.