Not Too Busy
just enough
“Life is too short to be busy,” writes Tim Kreider as the last sentence of his essay published on The Opinion Page of The New York Times thirteen years ago.
Yes, take notice…
Daydream, wander, simmer—essential ingredients of creative life.
Idleness has been the target of criticism, but Kreider elaborates:
Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration — it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.
Before arriving at work and idleness, there seems to be an increasing burden of tasks and details involved with managing a fairly simple life, especially layered with the processing of so much violence that has become a norm.
And these words emerge…
THIS
At 11 o’clock in the morning it is snowing.
I sit to write something to read at an upcoming holiday poet’s party.
First I must cancel the Hulu subscription.
The option in the settings for a simple click does not work.
A popup tells me to call a number where I hear a rep with an A.I. voice.
They tell me the computer is slow due to updating and I am put on hold.
I hang up and write myself a note to try again later.
Better call the snowplow guy before the driveway becomes a bed of ice.
Feeling hungry, I imagine French onion soup.
I chop and brown onions in a pan.
Then remember to take the vitamins that prevent my bones from deteriorating.
The buzzer from the dryer goes off so I retrieve the laundry and notice the new robe is missing a snap.
Soup simmers and I read a startling story online.
An American woman and legal citizen named Sue Tincher walks up to men gathered near her home in Minnesota and asks Are you ICE?
They assault and cuff her—cut off her wedding band and place her in detention.
T h i s
i s
h a p p e n i n g
n o w.
The soup topped with toast and melting cheese tastes good.
Grateful for safety, warmth, shelter, food.
This is a time of brief days and long dark evenings.
This is a time of ornament and offering.
A duo of sad-looking Santa and Reindeer yard inflatables glow up and expand in front of the house across the street.
Gun violence at Brown.
Gun violence at Hanukkah gathering in Australia.
Hollywood legend murdered at home.
This is a time to grieve.
This is a time for light.
At 11 o’clock in the evening I breathe in the movement of days and call it a poem.
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