In Praise of Boredom (and Fig Newtons) [#27]

For most of my adult life, boredom has been an affliction I’ve relentlessly tried to avoid.

Like a head cold, I can always feel it coming on —

that oh crap moment after the new season of Ozark ends when I know I’ll have to find something else to do — like *gasp* laundry. Or the uh-oh realization on a Formerly-Known-as-Saturday afternoon when there’s not enough time to do any real chores but it’s still too early to show up for happy hour.

What to do? Certainly not just stand/sit/lie around being bored?!

The horror…

But the truth is, when we were on land, there simply wasn’t enough time to actually be bored. As long as we had WiFi, a smartphone, and a few basic apps, we could literally watch or read just about anything anytime — from books to blockbusters to last night’s Late Late Show.

As long as we were willing to accept watching or reading as the prophylactic cure, boredom was a malady that, despite an intense fear of catching, we’d never really know.

That said, Boat Time brought us closer to an understanding of just how much downtime it takes in order to reach true boredom. Subsequently, it allowed forced us to accept boredom in the same way one might accept a stray cat that just won’t leave the back deck — without much of a choice.

We learned quickly, and somewhat horrifyingly, that Boat Life has a sneaky way of taking us from zero to 100 and back to zero in one breath —

like that terrifyingly absurd ride at Knott’s Berry Farm that shoots you to the top of the world and back again before you can spell your first name, let alone barf.

We whine like toddlers at nap time as we wait through the impossibly long and usually hot line; then, the second we’re buckled in and the ride we’ve been waiting for actually begins, we curse and scream like teenagers until the moment it comes to a screeching halt.

But time after time, when the ride ends, we decide it wasn’t really so bad, and promptly walk back to stand in that same long slow line so we can do it all over again. Two weeks of napping in the slow lane for 30-seconds of space shuttle takeoff. Rinse and repeat.

But standing in the Boat Life Boredom line doesn’t hold a candle to the one we’re all waiting in right now.

If Boat Life Boredom is a stray cat, Quarantine Life Boredom a bonafide new member of the family — a needy doodle who doesn’t leave our side, requires space on the couch (preferably with access to several pillows), and excessive hand-holding.

I think it’s safe to say that Quarantine Life has unequivocally changed our collective reality — in the city, on a boat, on a farm, in a van — life as we knew it has taken a 180.

As it turns out, 180 degrees from the hustle and bustle of work and school and sports and commutes and vacations and happy hours and dinner-and-a-shows is, in fact, Boredom.

I mean, not at first, of course.

At first, 180 degrees from Normal is Awesome.

It’s working from home in full sweats and committed Netflix binging before lunch and pancake balls for dinner. It’s extra time together as a family and time to finish the books we started last year and time to crush two hours before bed by simply scrolling through our otherwise neglected social media feeds.

But even those sweet cookies that at first seem like such a welcome new flavor, in time start to taste a little funky, and we realize it’s because they’re not really cookies after all, they’re Fig Newtons.

And we think to ourselves: there’s a reason we buy Oreos and it’s because they don’t taste like Fig Newtons.

So now what? We’re over the novelty of not knowing what day it is; past the point where watching Narcos at noon is deeply satisfying (also we maybe finished all the seasons and spinoffs); and slightly-curious-though-mostly-petrified to know whether or not our jeans still fit.

Enter a whole new world.

A world that’s shifted from never giving us enough time to suddenly offering more time than we know what to do with.

Time to literally just be.

Be creative. Be busy. Be sleepy. Be inspired. Be still. Be productive.

There’s even time to be bored.

We can still read and binge-watch T.V. of course, but we’re learning we also have time for so much more.

After the disappointing realization that days on end filled only with television and snacking-all-day starts to wear a little thin (and make us a little fat), we realize there’s actually a perfectly lovely niche for boredom.

Because out of the soil of boredom blooms flowers of both long-lost and brand-new hobbies.

We have so much time that it’s finally okay to spend some of it testing an unknown. When we only had an hour of free time in a day, it was easy to avoid experimenting with a new Maybe-I’ll-Like-it hobby — or recipe or book or show or craft.

Because what if we hated it?

If that were the case, we’d have just given away the only precious hour in the day we had to ourselves.

Clearly too risky.

But now that we have all the hours and all the days laid out infinitely before us like stars across a desert sky, trying our hand at cabbage curry no longer seems like such a high stakes gamble.

The curry sucks? No worries — plenty of time tomorrow to try it in a taco instead.

Maybe we’ll paint with our kids or see if we like online workouts or murder mysteries or baking pie crusts from scratch.

Maybe we’ll pick up our dusty guitars and re-learn Simple Man and how to play bar chords. Maybe we’ll see if we can remember how to sew (by making face masks, but still…).

We now live in a world where we actually have time (and motivation) to get up early to watch a sunrise or stay up late to watch a supermoon; we have time for virtual happy hours on a Maybe-It’s-Monday afternoon and FaceTime visits during I-Think-It-Might-Be-Thursday breakfasts.

Suddenly, and without warning, we actually have time. Miraculously, we’re even learning how to use it.

But of course, just when we start to get the hang of it, Quarantine Life will pass — inevitably dissolving back into some familiar version of normalcy:

The 405 will again be a river of red brake lights and subways will be crammed with commuters by 7:00 a.m. 

Parents will drop off kids at school before dawn and then work until dinner. 

Grocery stores will return to carrying a (no-longer-inexplicable) surplus of toilet paper and the price for a 10-ounce container of hand sanitizer will fall back below $200. 

The question is, will WE dissolve back into OUR old normal? Or will we be different? Changed.

Will we remember what it was like when we had time — time to play, to rest, to bake, to sit, to fish, to learn, to teach? Will we still do jigsaw puzzles on coffee tables and play dominoes before dinner? Will we still go out of our way to check on our neighbors? Our friends? Our parents?

Will we accept returning to a world that doesn’t give us enough time to be bored? Or will we change the world?

The line for every ride in this park has morphed into one and it’s longer than ever.

After all, it’s not just Boat Folks standing in it anymore. It doesn’t matter which ride we’d planned to ride — there’s only one line, it’s not moving, and we’re all waiting in it together. I mean, six feet apart, but together.

For all it's lows, this stalled procession does have a few notable highs: where it snakes past the Ferris wheel, I can hear Andrew Lloyd Webber playing show tunes on a baby grand; up near the entrance to the lazy river, John Krasinski is sharing Some Good News; and, rumor has it, there's a make-your-own churro stand within shouting distance. 

So, while I maintain a close eye on those churros, I’m gonna continue to share some virtual peanut butter oatmeal and toddler dance offs with my nephew (who’s in the same queue some 3,000 miles behind me), and then I’m gonna sip tequila one day and rum the next and laugh-till-it-hurts with my besties in Park City.

Tomorrow, when the line still hasn’t budged an inch, I’m gonna make granola like the Homesteading Boss I’m fast-becoming and then try again to catch the sneaky mackerel and blue runners taunting me beneath our boat.

For soon enough, even this stagnant line will start moving again.

When it does, I hope I remember how much I enjoyed going slow — even stopping — once in a while.

When the rides and lines are back in full amusement-park-swing and the chaos of the lights and the sounds and the crowds and the constant motion surrounds me,

I hope I remember that I am now someone who throws a fishing line before breakfast and makes my own yogurt.

When time returns to being a traded commodity — a privilege we must pay for instead of the inalienable quarantine right as we’ve come to know it — I hope I remember the wild joy of cashing out and setting sail.

And, when my plate is once more filled with Oreos, I hope now and again I’ll still dig around in the cupboard until I find a Fig Newton.

To those of you fighting this battle on the actual battlefield -- healing, helping, creating, delivering, curing, collecting... We know YOU are not bored and, if anything, you're probably losing time rather than gaining it. 

We offer you a huge debt of gratitude and thanks and awe from our little corner of the world. 

Seriously, the most sincere thanks for all you're doing to get the world back on its feet and healthy again. ❤️