I am able to find calm between midnight and 4 AM, when most people are asleep and I am accompanied only by my cat, dog and the lone bird on the block who sings whenever she pleases. Being up at ungodly hours used to be a regular occurrence in college, and when I fall back into this pattern of daytime naps and nighttime working sessions, I dwell on my English major past.
Professor Crawford had a peppery bob, wore thick black-rimmed glasses and yelled at anyone who attempted to use the restroom during class. She was firm yet quirky, and seemed to throw herself into the literature she taught more than any teacher I’d met at the University of San Francisco. In her course, aptly titled “3 Big Books,” we were tasked with reading Paradise Lost by John Milton (624 pages), The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Stern (650 pages) and Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (544 pages). It was the fall of 2013, and let me tell you, it was a long semester.
My professor believed that we had to actively cultivate a quiet mind in order to be successful in her class. She gave each student a Mitsubishi Hi-Uni HB pencil (the best writing implement for taking notes, she argued), and instructed us to procure a journal and an analog timer. We were to track our thoughts on every chapter and build up our stamina by reading dense passages for thirty minutes, an hour, two hours at a time. The timer and these dedicated reading spells would help us eliminate both wandering thoughts and external distractions and throw it back to the days when people could go five minutes without checking their phone.
Did I ever utilize the timer while slogging through those books? The answer is no. But what now resonates with me is the concept of inhabiting a quiet mind, and identifying the endeavors that necessitate it. The things I’d like to do are easy and require no intellectual effort — baking brownies, painting my nails, watching every single episode of Chopped. The things I need to do keep life running smoothly and, though tedious, aren’t exactly rocket science — sending that quick work e-mail, cleaning up the dishes, paying the PG&E bill.
The things I want to accomplish, though, demand all of my faculties — reading the novel on my nightstand, making art from a pile of magazine scraps, writing my own novel, writing a poem, writing this newsletter. My creative pursuits fulfill me, and to be honest, they’re best achieved whilst unplugged.
But the 21st century doesn’t quite lend itself to unplugging. With dispatches of new rules for living, pandemic devastation and disturbing crimes circulating in our feeds and brains, unplugging can seem unwise. It can make us feel more disconnected than ever. Just remember that there’s a difference between unplugging and willfully sticking your head in the sand. There are benefits to leaving the realm of social media behind for thirty minutes, an hour, two hours at a time. I think Professor Crawford was onto something.
I put my phone in another room and take a moment to breathe. I slowly regain a certain clarity, even if I don’t know what I’m trying to focus on or do or say. Wandering thoughts become my ally. The most significant effect of honing a quiet mind has been the ability to hear my own voice and amplify it. I spent years writing essays, filling up pages, pounding out words I hoped would earn me an A. There are no grades here. Just goals. And sometimes, to cross one off the list, you simply need to still the noise.
Catch up on past installments of interior monologue: