A Summer Hermit
A meandering draft on rest and not hating myself for it.
Life has been slow this month. It has been slow and it has been quiet, at least in my home. It’s a stark contrast to the nightly fireworks and M80 booms on my block, the hollering across pods of lawn chairs on sidewalks, the people soaked and dancing in the fire hydrant outside my building to music played for the whole neighborhood to hear.
I go out into it with Cooper, we walk past the heat and the summer-time energy slick on skin, I give small smiles out like quiet breezes. We come back, sticky from just existing, to my apartment that has become a home I made. I shut it all out behind us.
I am on the couch that I’m sure is becoming worn from the press of my body in the same places for weeks. A cooling blanket separates me from my laptop. My little dog’s nose is resting just beside these keys as I tap them, his bone still pinned under his paw as his eyes droop. His little body is a slice of warm along my leg. He stretches, barely annoyed at the bouncing of the laptop, and his head becomes a small heart shaped weight on my knee. The TV is perched above my screen but it is black. All I can hear is the hush of the air filters trying to save me from my allergy to my dog. The buildings outside are a bright shade of terracota and the sky is a perfect blue that doesn’t betray a hint of the humidity that it holds.
I have not worked one day in July. No one has offered me work, but I also haven’t pursued it.
I have not written you a piece.
I feel like I have done nothing.
And there are moments when I am angry at myself for that.
But the parts of me that are now pumped full of agency aren’t so scared of fear and criticism anymore. Most of them are resting too, coloring in sun drenched windows, sleeping under the stars, reading in cozy corners. My Mother part, no longer ashamed to be mothering, takes Critique and sometimes Ambition by the hand and leads them away from their tirades and into perfectly tucked comforters.
We’re resting.
We’re wasting time! We’ve rested! All of this time is an opportunity! What happens while we rest?
What happens if we don’t?
There are moments when I remember similar behaviors: long days on the couch, avoiding phone calls, watching TV. Couch girl, the artist formerly known as Depression, winks at me. Cozy, right?
Am I sad?
Sometimes.
Is this depression?
We promised if we had time, if we didn’t have to work, we would change the world!
Who do we promise things to?
We’re just sitting here!
Sitting here and relaxing and resting and reading and thinking and cleaning and cooking and building strength and conviction.
We should go see our friends.
It’s so hot outside. It makes me feel gross.
We should go make new friends. We should go to one of those events that we found. We should go on an adventure.
What do you want to do right now?
…
Maybe just this for a while.
In the slowness, I have heard parts of myself.
With no force, I feel propelled instead of compelled. I feel parts of me starting to stretch and reach out, rather than being dragged along by their toddler hands.
I turn on the TV often, but I don’t watch the new season of Love Island or The Circle. I can feel myself choosing things I actually like instead of numbing.
I get bored with the TV and so I start reading. The hungry little bookworm in me is ecstatic. A girl who used to swallow books whole, gobbles up chapters and then starts something new. She has never read more than one book at once and now she has twelve.
I get bored with reading. I put down my book and look at the remote but leave it where it is. I sit still.
I feel my body. I make a doctors appointment. A task that’s been on my to do list for months. It’s the first time taking blood hasn’t made me nauseous. Maybe because I’ve been taking my Iron pills, maybe because I’m rested and hydrated. Maybe there’s no secret reason at all.
I call my parents randomly to say hi. I’ve guilted myself for years about not wanting to pick up the phone, but it’s effortless this time.
I text with my niece for hours. I hope I keep her off Youtube. She Skypes me while she cleans out her closets. I hope I make her summer brighter.
I call a friend when out on a walk and pop by to let our dogs play. I don’t usually call.
I take an ADHD self-test and another one for neurodivergency and start to see my brain differently, start to respect it.
I spend hours reading about new books and bumping them to the top of reading wish lists I’ll never get through. I stop reading books that don’t make me want to keep reading them.
I spend more hours going down internet rabbit holes about community, mental health, and collective care. I sign up for online classes for mental health first aid, social therapy, and abnormal psychology.
Between episodes of something, I look into places I can volunteer.
I make meals that take hours, I make homemade granola and homemade chai lattes. I look through recipes I like and create a grocery cart that isn’t the result of grabbing cravings as I go down every aisle.
I seal the cracks the roaches invade my bathroom and kitchen from with caulk, I donate old clothes and rugs, I fix my shower head so that it has strong water pressure.
I reorganize my kitchen and buy a small washing machine. I do 30 small loads of laundry instead of going to the laundromat that I hate and I feel… happy. A friend helps me put up a shelf in my kitchen and suddenly my 8 year apartment feels like a home.
I say no to many plans even though I love the people asking.
I spend time practicing tricks with my dog and I teach him to bring me his collar when he wants to go outside.
I watch a documentary about Dr. Ann Burgess and I cry.
I apply for a grad school program.
I find a potential mentor and reach out to say hello.
I get a trash grabber thing and start picking up trash in my park on our morning walks. I wonder about the social contract - which pages have been ripped out and lost, which are still intact, and which are soiled and just need a little deciphering.
I walk back into my house to smells of fresh laundered blankets and home cooked meals.
I think
think
think
dream
dream
dream of crafting and hot takes parties with my friends, of going to the Drawing Room, of leading free group therapy or listening sessions, of stewarding a piece of land on the water and welcoming guests, of living in a commune with like-minded friends, of helping create more community rooted in collective mental health care.
I don’t try to cram laundry and dreaming into a day off of work. It all slides into weeks. It comes and it goes and I make little notes on my phone or look up something that has created a spark. I doze.
And there are dreams there too.
I wonder if I’ve started remembering my sleeping dreams because sleep isn’t just a desperate time to recharge and catch up on years of sleep debt anymore. I wonder if it’s because the creative part of me feels free to play at night now. I wonder if different parts of me are taking turns spinning stories. I wonder if it’s for no particular reason at all.
I wonder what dreams are and if I am supposed to do something with them. I can’t seem to forget a dream I had a few months ago where I desperately wanted to die. I was telling people I loved and they didn’t believe me and I cried until I couldn’t breathe. We were in our family van and then wandering halls that echoed my teenage home. I was trying to find someone who could hear me, stop me. When I woke up, the feeling and the memory were so vivid and I ached for the part of me that had conjured it. What should I do with something like that? When children have a nightmare and wake up, we assure them that the monsters aren’t real. When I have a nightmare that a person I love has been hurt or died, I call them the next morning to make sure they’re okay. Should I do something for myself with these dreams?
Two nights ago, asleep, I was trudging in knee deep, pre-dawn snow through a small village that threw dusty beams of amber onto our path to a school of something new. It was beautiful and has been stitched somewhere into the back of my brain. When I wake up from dreams like those, I fall more in love with the creative part of me that draws these stories and brings them to me in the quiet. I pin her pictures onto our cork board. Maybe I should pin up the tears from the dream from months ago too.
I read this little beacon from
today…To face ourselves without distraction, temptation, numbing, even other humans’ company, is one of humanity’s most consistent terrors, as well as one of its most consistent needs. Who are you, who am I, without the demands of a routine, schedule, the pressing obligations of work or caregiving, and the ability to check out? The allure of distraction is constant because to face ourselves is so terrifying. It’s also, in a time when our minds are offered or force-fed distraction at almost every turn, an odd kind of privilege. (Full piece here)
And so I finally wrote this piece.
I have certainly allowed myself distractions, but with an excess of time (excess doesn’t seem like the right word anymore) I have still had silence to face myself without pressure.
I keep thinking I’m done resting and ready to do. But I’ve seen my body tell me when it’s done. I’ve seen myself choose to do things instead of forcing myself to do things. And I do choose. I don’t watch TV forever.
I don’t know how to describe the difference, but it’s slow and it’s deeply magnetic and it feels… good. It feels like no stress, no rush. It feels like getting into a lake where the water has been so warmed by the sun that it doesn’t shock any part of my skin, not even that spot just below my belly button that makes me suck in my breath as I submerge. Not even there. Effortlessly I’m in and I’m swimming or I’m floating, both, and I’m watching the light play through the trees on the dappled water. Sometimes the light hits just right and the water winks at me, surging me forward. Or maybe it was a tail or something larger that flicked up to the surface. Curiosity leads. My body is strong and the tide is always moving in my direction. The water holds me when my arms and soles are sore.
Maybe I require a lot of rest.
Maybe my body requires more trust.
What a privilege this time is. I know it will not last forever; I still have to pay NYC rent and I have certainly not been stingy with my air conditioner usage while hermitting. I got an ask for work while typing this and I can see a spot on the muddy bank up ahead where I can push myself out for this bit of work, not dreading it, knowing it’s just a part of everything else. My skin will drip dry in the sun while I lay my head in the leaves.
I feel grateful to myself for taking this time to rest, to say hello to the dusty corners of myself, to let other parts of me drive, even if they stop at every well-stocked rest stop along the way and don’t even get out of the car. We’re on our way home anyway.
P.S. Happy birthday to my sister (and first and founding subscriber). I love you very much.
Proud of you for resting with vigor!
Would love to live from Self like this Stephanie — you are way ahead of me!