Gentle Time
I wake up each morning and bask in my feelings. Some days they anchor me to my bed and make me despair; other days they caress me softly as I float just above my sheets. I bathe in time, brushing each individual tooth, spending extra seconds on the ones in the back. A hug for my mother, another for my grandpa, and then fresh oats from the InstaPot garnished with banana and sunflower seeds. I’ll barge into my sister’s room for her daily dose of amiable irritation, maybe learn a TikTok dance or two. Oil pastels, sewing machine, or laptop in hand, I sit at my desk, making last night’s insomniatic mental ramblings a reality. As the day comes to a close, I can stay up until tomorrow morning finishing a project or let it fail without repercussions. Like today, tomorrow is gentle. It is sympathetic to my fatigue, irritability, and self-doubt. The days have no names, and none are my enemies. They give me space to create and time to reflect. As fall looms closer I want to hold on to these gentle moments and keep them close, but with each progressive minute, they seem to slip away. Before quarantine, time was mean. Dragging me forward willing or otherwise, it taunted and provoked, chastised and rebuked. The days had names; each one a different insult, each morning a false promise, and each evening false respite. I have felt the love of a still moment that makes no demands and I’m not ready to give it up.
This gentle time has allowed me to feel like a child again, free to simply exist and explore, and I never want to give it up.
These gentle moments have held my hand as I adjusted to the isolation and ongoing social upheaval. They helped me find a balance between advocating for others and myself. They taught me that we shouldn’t have to live such fast lives, constantly learning and producing like sentient machines. I shouldn’t have to live in a state of exhaustion to maintain acceptable levels of productivity. In these nameless days, I’ve been asking myself: What is ultimately achieved by productivity? Something we don’t need but are taught to expect like two-day free shipping with Prime? What we truly need is drastically different from the things we’ve been told we need. I challenge you to make these same critical evaluations of yourself. Rather than consume blindly, take full advantage of this moment to slow down. Travel into your mind, brew some mental tea, and sit down for a conversation with yourself. In fast times I was too busy putting out external fires to get to know myself in a vacuum. This gentle time gives me the chance to start exploring the network of dark tunnels constructed over the years by what can only be characterized as a vengeful beaver on amphetamines.
Some breadcrumbs my beaver left me:
- Lay on the floor, it’s a grounding experience.
- Eat copious amounts of Ben & Jerry’s and allow the sugar rush to fuel your fight to dismantle racist institutions.
- Go outside, summer nights are worth the bug bites.
I saw a beaver in my backyard; staring out the window has become one of my favorite hobbies, along with combing through the playstore for the best money making game apps I can find. The classic scene is rain, the constant movement is simultaneously engaging and hypnotizing. People are endless fun, sometimes you get lucky and yell a quick “hello!” to a friend on a run. Still, scenes are an acquired taste, but any real window watcher knows that nothing is ever completely still. Cars are alright, their headlights morph into eyes glaring stoically ahead. In fast times I stared out windows numbly, desperately grasping for a pause button. Now, windows play out as movies, with narrative, plot twists, and an occasional villain. I’m already growing nostalgic for this time when I have surplus energy to spin into adventure and story. To be able to sit for minutes, maybe hours, to find the perfect colors. For hours to lose their names and to live by the sun, the grumbling of my stomach to be the only sound splitting up my days. I sit. I talk. I watch. I read. It’s not just the end of quarantine I’m dreading, it’s the end of childhood. The end of gliding through life as someone works behind the scenes to ease your way. I can’t tell if I’ve just gotten a taste of the good life and now everything is paling in comparison or I’m simply scared of adulthood. I can chalk it up to a hatred of authority or rejection of capitalist machinations, but the real pressure, constant and foreboding, is the pressure to grow up. A phenomenon I reject out of fear—fear of true independence—fear of becoming an adult. This gentle time has allowed me to feel like a child again, free to simply exist and explore, and I never want to give it up.
Cover art by Catherine Ju, design director