Boredom and Contentment

​June 9, 2020
​
​Beloved:

 In nature news, this little family visits almost nightly.  Three babies and their mother.  Sweet as pie, except another relative has shown up, big enough to stretch from deck rail to humming-bird feeder.  I’ve seen raccoons unhook my feeders and chug from them like beer bottles, then smash the feeders on the ground below; so mine are now secured with zip-tie carabiners.  He’ll need a pocket knife to cut them down. 

Instead, he plucks out the plastic flowers to increase the flow.  That he takes out all the flowers when he only drinks from one tells me everything I need to know about this guy.  This morning I found all my plastic flowers and super glued them to the feeder.  It’s his move now. 

​Otherwise, I’ve been thinking about boredom and contentment.  About the impulse to fill 

time rather than be present to the movement of time.  ​

Early morning to mid-morning.  Noon to late afternoon.  Each time has its own feel and even its own light.  I find a certain little pinch of joy in recognizing this.  The ebb and flow of noise inside and outside the house that I have only discovered staying home day after day is a gift of quarantine I didn’t anticipate and hope I don’t forget.  Sometimes I get the urge to check out, to binge-watch TV reruns or play solitaire on my phone for thirty minutes at a go.  That’s boredom, not contentment.  Time to go outside.  Even a nap is time better spent.

Of course, there is also the news — always urging me to DO SOMETHING!  This world’s need compared to my life energy is so vast, I am overwhelmed before I can begin.  I find being present to the moment helps there too, centering me in the reality of what one person can do:  a lot, in fact.  One person can attend a protest.  One person can read and learn and discover the racism within their own thinking.  One can write letters.  One person can encourage.  One person can confront, with love, the misunderstandings they come upon.  All these things feel doable when I am present to the moment and to the eternal quality of time.

As you go about your day, I pray you find joy in the empty spaces.