Another post I found today from Rebecca Solnit, one of my favorite writers, focuses on rest.
We moved to Kensington eighteen years ago. In 2004 I essentially retired from studio work—no more senior portraits, proms, families, weddings, all the day-to-day stuff that kept the lightbulbs on, the water flowing, for the previous twenty-seven years. At first the newness of a new house, a new neighborhood, a new city (or more appropriately, a new unincorporated village) kept both of us busy, walking everywhere, visiting Open Houses on Sundays, trying new restaurants. We still had Dozens of Muslins, our background rental business, keeping us occupied during the school year.
Not long after that Jason came to work for and with us, then took over the business and the backgrounds to Elm Court, six or seven minutes away. So by 2009 there was no shooting, no proms, no backgrounds to rent, no nothing. I sold some of my cameras, then some lights, then a few accessories, keeping enough to restart my business, should I choose. I didn’t choose. Or, I should say, I chose not to go back into business.
That was thirteen years ago. I was faced with real retirement, waking up every morning with an empty calendar. We both spent some of the day exercising; we had our house painted; we redid the landscaping. But we both looked for more. Jadyne continued as a hospice volunteer. I began working one-half day a week as a volunteer at the Berkeley Food Pantry. We volunteered, driving Meals on Wheels, spending time with UC grad students from other countries who wanted to improve their English, tutoring middle school children, and Jadyne continued her hospice work, which she had begun in Santa Rosa.
Still there were hours to fill, only we came to understand that you can fill hours with silence, with reading, with just closing your eyes, with doing nothing, and that doing nothing doesn’t mean that nothing changes. Things happen in silence and in quiet. Good things.
Mary has it down—whether the child’s midday nap, the resting dog, or the hours I sit quietly with a book in my hands. I drop it sometimes, or just put it down, close my eyes, and let something not part of my active mind take over.
I had never thought of the mating call of the bed, that it’s the sensual experience that Lynne describes, but there are times, to be sure, when it’s #1 on my To Do list.
Beyond the sensual and restorative powers of rest there is the time when we pull our stockings down, hike up our skirt, and cross our arms in front of our eyes to keep out the sun.
The immeasurable restorative powers of rest at work. “Seeds germinating underground”
There’s rest and there’s rest. At a Trump rally there’s no doubt that the dozing tattooed lady is finding the true meaning of “nothing.”
Some seeds never germinate.