thinking gets you nowhere

It's an essential part of the day for me, now in my seventies: thinking through stuff. I do it a lot and if I haven't the time for it, I feel stressed. In the morning, before getting up -- awake, thinking. Finished breakfast, Chopin playing in the background -- sorting through the possibilities for that next step. 

 

 

And so on. Mental exercise. Until it's bedtime, whereupon once more I will be in bed, staring into space, not reading yet, just... thinking.

As with everything though, excessive thought feels like a time suck. At the end of the day, if all you've basically done is think about stuff, you feel that one twenty-nine-thousand-two-hundredth of your life (assuming you live til 80) went nowhere. If you only have about 29 200 days of living, shouldn't each one count? 

I go back to Oliver Burkeman's writings (see yesterday's post), wondering if this is something he addresses in his posts on time management. And he does, here, in a piece titled Getting Physical. If, like he says, the centerpiece to a feeling of well-being is knowing that you had an impact on something or someone, well, thinking about it doesn't get you there. It may lay down the path for future action, but it seems to me that it's the action, the physical steps taken, produced, created, however trite, that make you feel accomplished. Or, at least more accomplished than had you spent the day not producing anything.

I force myself to get up and out of the too comfortable apartment. I need to walk. And perhaps this is why we're so obsessed with counting steps. The number, no matter how small, allows us to feel accomplished.

If the walk to my right takes me past hotels and corporate offices, the one to my left puts me right in the thick of an outdoor mall of sorts, with factory outlets of known brands. You'd think this was really pathetic. Why not get in the car and drive for a few minutes to something better? A park? The Arboretum? Owen Woods? Well, it's because I find it hard to find pleasure in driving in order to walk. The two don't fit well. I'll take a lesser walk, so long as I can omit the driving part. And besides, it's fall. And there are trees, and they are pretty, even in this world of concrete sidewalks and corporate blocks.

As I walk between parked cars and apartment buildings where too many people seem to like to have their shades drawn, I think about my flower fields: isn't it better to spend the day productively, clearing the weeds, planting the fall bulbs, digging the soil, spreading the mulch? Do I not miss that?

I ask myself those questions and come up with no answers. I know I miss the farmette stability. The comfort of knowing what the day will bring and how it will end. Change always follows the same pattern: at first it's exciting, then it's uncomfortable. I remember when I returned to New York as an 18 year old to work as an au pair and finish college there. I missed just about nothing about my life back in Warsaw. I had a messy parental situation, a boyfriend who was about as consistent as the weather in March, a field of study I hated. And yet, the plunge into a life across the ocean, with a different everything, felt gloomy and strange, despite its freedoms and the wealth of my surroundings (the family for whom I worked was quite prosperous). Nonetheless, I am somewhat of an advocate for change. Ed isn't but I am. I feel you grow with disruption and with a good shakeup now and then. The traveler in me is always looking for novel vignettes and takes on life. Nonetheless, I wont say that it's easy to pivot and take on something completely new, because it's not.

 

The young family is here for dinner today.  

 

(a long corridor is an invitation to race)

(for some.)

Although it's permissible to host or even keep dogs at the Edge, it's too early to introduce Goose to still different surroundings. That dog has had more change in his lifetime than you or I are likely to ever experience in the course of one year. From gutter to rescue to foster to now his new home. All in nine months. I look forward to having him visit, but not just yet.

 

 

 

 (parmesan cheese calls for a vacuum cleaner afterwards... I have two willing helpers)

 

 

Throughout the day, I've returned to the Chopin Competition. This is the last day of the second round. My friend in Warsaw is rooting for Tianyao Lyu -- a young Chinese pianist and I mean young! Would you believe 16!? (Watch and listen here. We listened at dinnertime!) 

And in the evening -- our early evening and Warsaw's very late evening -- they announce the pianists who made it to the third stage. We are down to 20 now. Three from Poland, two from the U.S., the two Canadians some believe to be favorites, six from China -- including yes, the 16 year old Tianyao Lyu. She is one of only four women who made it to this third stage. Remarkable!

with so much love..