“Everything that surrounds us becomes part of us, it seeps into us with every experience of the flesh and of life and, like the web of a great spider, binds us subtly to what is near” - Fernando Pessoa
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After going from 0-50 miles a week in the past few weeks of running, yesterday I woke up to my rest-day reminder. A blip on the google calendar, which has the best integration between desktop and mobile, in my opinion!
What do on a rest day?
I found some very cool guided meditations, I played with all my pens and notebooks and planners, I went for a walk with a friend (masks on), had two coffees, read a book that turned into a nap, and rearranged my to-do list without moving anything from one side to the other. In the absence of a three monitor set up, I like to project my multi-tasking onto two opposite sides of a door with post-it notes. It’s a nicely modular system, and I don’t mind seeing all my goals cluttering the walls of the room I hang out in nearly 24/8.
These days, I am bound, not so subtly, to what is near. Life seems to have been simplified to its most basic integers. I find this really satisfying. I’ve even doubled-down on the isolation and find myself less involved trying to even approximate a normal social life ‘virtually’.
Honestly, I’m so ‘out-of-touch’ it didn't even necessarily realize this was a unique point of view worth exploring until yesterday.
Because I value socializing and relationships a lot. And yet, I feel leaning into the isolation piece of “self-isolating” is the best use of my energy.
Social life has become obviously stripped down and detached from the 3-D. With no place to go and get sneezed on, or feel your heart pounding in a room full of strangers more important than you, I find myself asking, what’s the point? And now that all the days blur into each other, there’s no great pressure to stay awake for 72 hours on a weekend to make every party, I can really attempt to answer that question.
When I reflect, I feel like, although it seems like only a few months ago, we were operating in the wide open world, where we could go, do, or meet anyone we wanted to, we were still subtly cocooned, moving slowly along a web of who we knew, what we thought possible, entrenched patterns of how our relationships play out with family and old friends.
Perhaps things were unfolding over a broader sets of places and events, parties and handshakes. But BELIEVE ME, wherever you are in the world, and whatever you’re doing - whether you are behind a shopping cart with a face-mask at your local grocery store, or on the back of an illegal mototaxi ferrying you through the biggest favela in Rio - it is all the same BYOB party. Your beliefs, thoughts, observations, experiences, attitude, values, body, money, backpack, teeth, hair, heart, soul, are always what’s coming with you on the plane, to the party, to the meeting. They are what puts you there in the first place.
So in that way, I really feel like, if you are someone living the situation where your normal life has grown quiet lately, the best thing you can do for your friendships, relationships, career, social life, traveling dreams, is to welcome the silence. Meditate, if you need to fill the new space of an empty calendar, fill it with good intention, purpose, happy dreams, deeper perspective. We are always shaping our own experiences as involuntarily as we breathe. Time to breathe means an amazing opportunity to start shaping your experiences with intention!
I hope you’ll make the most of it <3
PS- the title of this blog is a Lana Del Rey song/ tik tok audio that accidentally cemented to the back of brain but because I spend so much time alone, one thing I am really aware of is positive self-talk and the importance of affirmations so if you need one take what you need and say “hello-o-o you are looking so fine” in a Lana del Rey voice to yourself every time you pass a mirror or a patch of blooming daffodils.