I was exceedingly distracted by social media today. The March Shredness project has so many great essays and essayists and I am enamored with the conversations happening and the terrible videos. Add to that trying to put some panels together for NonfictionNow in Phoenix in November, and FB and Twitter have their hooks in me hard. I was doing so well staying away!
The following tweet is silly and also deeply true of me lately:
some personal news: i finally read a longform article i have had open since january in a tab and can now close that tab
how do i even celebrate— rachel syme (@rachsyme) March 14, 2018
I have so many literal and figurative tabs open, no wonder it’s tough to focus on actual writing. No wonder it is hard to quiet my monkey mind for even 15 minutes before bed. Part of the problem is the “tabbiness” of all the balls in the air. Rather than trying to keep track or counting on email or –god forbid– plugging everything into my phone like M does, ’cause I for really real need to hold that thing clutched to my face like an oxygen mask full of anxiety and despair much less often than I do now, I need something physical and obvious as a Mardi Gras float. I’m dreaming of this white board with squares or quadrants, like Writing, Day Job, Side Job, Gig Search (always, always), House, Brain, Heart. And then I have to have shit going on in each, but only, say, two at a time. Everything else has to wait until that quadrant has some space. What a luxury that would be! What a clarity of purpose. I know where they have whiteboards.
Tonight I did some p.m. yoga before sitting. Did it help? I am not sure. But yoga isn’t something I ever regret doing. I think it slowed my racing brain down a bit. It was like the parachutes on a rocket. Every time I meditate right before bed, part of my wandering mind is wondering about what I will write here. The wild (and informative?) thing is that I never remember what I was thinking I’d write about. The lesson, says the guru wearing monkey mind’s face for a mask: What is important changes minute to minute.