I forgot to bring a spoon to work today, so I’m scooping my yogurt with an old straw. Since the straw is cracked in places, I can’t use it to suck up the yogurt; instead, I’m scooping. So in case you’ve ever wondered how long it takes to scoop up a yogurt with a straw, it’s looking like a half hour.
Anyway, so when’s the last time you listened to a dork extol the virtues of being a dork?
Get ready.
My weekend starts on Fridays, and while I have some pleasurable weekend activities lined up, there is one activity in particular that I am especially excited about.
Let me explain.
This is a crowded planet for introverts. Say an extrovert takes a walk on the beach, and he only sees five people, who all either wave or engage him in conversation. That extrovert will go home and exclaim to his family,
“Great walk, but the beach was completely deserted.”
Put an introvert on that same beach, and he will go home in a bad mood and say the following:
“I tried taking a walk on the beach for some peace and quiet, but it was packed with chatty people.”
I have trouble finding places to work in peace, and when I say peace, I mean peace. No phones, no banging doors, no screaming kids, and especially no assholes talking at full volume on their cell phones who ignore signs that ask them to not talk on their cell phones in public.
(If you do this, you will be consigned to one of Dante’s Circles of Hell. And you’ll deserve it).
I have searched far and wide for quiet work rooms. Reading rooms. Just a table, a chair, an outlet and maybe a view, but that last is negotiable. It’s harder than you think to find somewhere to hunker down where NO ONE WILL BOTHER YOU. The Universe does not like people who want to be unbothered. The Universe will go to great lengths to make sure to bother you, all the time, with noise and minutiae.
Here comes the dorky part.
I have a lot of work to catch up on this weekend, like evaluations, emails, grading, and personal writing submissions, and I am happy to announce that I have found my Nirvana. A quiet work room tucked so far back in a building that the only person who knows I’m there is the desk clerk who smiles at me when I arrive, and checks on me intermittently with a kind smile and a “thumbs-up” through the window.
So after the gym on Saturday morning, I’m headed straight there. I will have packed my snacks and a cup of hot coffee, and some pleasure reading for breaks. And I will luxuriate in this room, working and thinking and enjoying the quiet, until my work is done.
The thought makes me giddy with pleasure. Because once I get home later that day, I can enjoy the rest of the weekend knowing my work is done, and that I got my dose of solitude. My battery will be completely charged, and I will be filled with a sense of stillness that will permeate everything I do.
So I hope whatever you are doing, you are able to enjoy your own stillness, whatever that entails. I know I will.