Thoughtfully thoughtless

Is it boredom?

Withdrawal symptoms from not having social media and meeting my manuscript deadline?

An existential dilemma?

A desire to be taken seriously but not entirely sure for what?

A phase - luteal, solar, hormonal - that nudges me toward gluttony and laziness? Both unproductive byproducts of a purposeless day, week, month... life!

I'm not sure … but the more I think of all the things I could be doing with my time, the more I resist doing them.

I stare at the rowing machine I purposefully dragged out of the garage a month ago and placed in the backyard figuring if it was in view and accessible, it would remove the "barrier to entry."

A day later, I bought a custom-fit cover for it and it has stayed shrouded since. Dutifully protected from the elements, untouched by me, in plain sight.

I've been buying a lot of books from Amazon, supporting the platform's original product base—Mary Oliver's Devotions and Dog Poems, José Andreas' yellow-cover book whose name I don't recall, a book on trees and my latest—a purchase this morning after watching Alex and Jason's live talk on Substack.

I feel that I should read analog now that I've freed up so much of my digital rabbit hole space.

But, do I curl up with a book, with undivided attention, and soak in all the nuances, the juxtapositions, the clever artistry, the essence?

Do I study the architecture of those words so I can better my craft?

Do I appreciate this privilege to simply have the time to read?

Given all this “free” time, one would imagine, I go on long, leisurely walks with the pup multiple times a day, paint, create new tokens of appreciation, cook, clean, nap, savor the slowness of the passage of days even as they blur into each other.

I would imagine I'd do the same.

But do I?

Do I "use" this time appropriately, wisely, as I must, as I should? Or do I, under the pretext of writing about it, while it away?

While eating okra chips dipped in hummus right after lapping up a big bowl of coffee-chocolate granola buried in with glutinous chocolate cereal imported from Portugal because that European gluten doesn't bother my gut—do I pause to deliberate how ill or well I'm using my time...if I am making the right choices?

As a grown woman, with a pre-teen child and a husband whose only means of providing bread and butter may be threatened...as the person holding it all together all the time for both of them while also remembering to nurture the pup, emotionally and physically, can I afford to idle away my days, thus?

Will binge-watching Friends & Neighbors on Apple TV Plus or Poker Face on Peacock, laced with those annoying ads, give me the answers I am seeking?

Do I even know the questions?