Right before my father died he was briefly (very briefly) in a convalescent home since he had fallen and broken a hip. Soon his bed there was strewn with New York Times, his favorite history books, a battered issue of "Foreign Report." He could barely read them at that time since he was highly medicated, but he wanted them around the way a child wants a favorite stuffed animal, and he did dip in and out. One of the nurses commented on this in front of him and I said something like "Oh yes, reading is his favorite thing to do." "No," he corrected me, "my favorite thing to do is thinking." I know what he means. I won't say that it is my absolute favorite thing to do, but this morning, now back in New York for three days,I realized how thinking grounds and calms me.
As usual when I am starting in a new direction I feel puzzled and anxious, even after all these years. Then I sit and start to think and make notes; once again I need to remember that the process of mulling takes a little time, and some empty space. This is especially true when I am making a transition from one project to another or juggling several projects at the same time, starting out in a new direction, or working with a deadline to meet. This is the time not for action, but for inaction. At this moment in time all of these conditions are true. And to add to this, my surroundings have changed completely, and I do mean completely. I have gone from wandering from orchard to orchard to play games on blankets, from floating down the Clark Fork on an inner tube, to riding the subway to Brooklyn. I have also gone from 14 hours a day on just one all encompassing project, to having to combine writing the report on this project with reconnecting with the families and schools I was working with here in New York before I left, not to mention catching up with personal affairs.
And so, this morning, instead of trying out a new yoga class that I found around here, I got up, got coffee, read the paper briefly, and began to think. Now a couple of hours later the whole thing looks not only manageable, but exciting. (Here's a picture that does not have a lot to do with this post, but it is all I have around. I took it last week.)
Lovely thing for me to read right now. Let's hear it for mulling.
Posted by: chepkirui | August 25, 2011 at 10:01 AM