In the frantic dizzyness of this place I call
home away from comes noon break. When everyone gets out for lunch, I stare at the monitor and pretend that I'm surfing. In this half hour of quiet, I don't answer the phone, don't check my email. I space out, I empty my thoughts, I mentally reboot. I can't explain the need, but through the years, I stopped thinking about this finding the time not to think at all and just do it. Do nothing. Think nothing.
If someone were looking at me now, I would be staring through the monitor, through the paper pile behind it, through my huge office window, and past the parking lot, past the parking buildings, past the visible horizon, and into the bright void.
When I was growing up, I remember it was before going to bed. The need remained although the hours change. Whatever I was feeling, I would find the time and place, and just stop.
I am seldom one to waste time. Like I find for example-- sleeping --as just that, something that the body needs but I hope can do without. I see what my teammates do and think how I can do their jobs better, hence faster. I picture weekdays with a mental Gantt chart overlaying daily work goals. My weekends are a laundry list of what I missed doing at home because I was at work.
Sometimes I find the rational self revolt such machination of mind and body, especially when as an adult, time is measured as an avenue for accomplishment, as one needs to earn his keep and bring home the daily bread. As a child, I suspected my head must be full of rocks, or that my brain is secretly harboring a tumor.
But I still feel nothing when it's over. Neither having felt an inner peace, nor an enlightening pause that refreshes.
So I tried giving it up. Tried to find ways to make myself busy, then busier, then busiest until I thought I ran out of time, or drove myself to get tired, whichever comes first. But before I sleep, I still find it.
I took to drinking when I discover that getting wasted drives me to a dreamless sleep. But morning comes with a hangover, and I still find it.
It goes on. Now, where were we?
